Exposure
by enigma731
Summary: It's all over the news on the waiting room televisions: Epidemic reported in New Jersey. Frighteningly quick occurrence. Potentially devastating circumstances. Post Human Error novella. On permanent hiatus.
1. Pain Relief

**Author's Note: **This is a novella to fill the summer hiatus. It picks up at the end of Human Error, and will hopefully mesh with the beginning of season four. It's more about plot than relationships, though relationships will certainly play a role. I encourage people not to be turned off by a specific couple, because there will be explorations of several throughout the course of the fic. I'm going to try my hardest to finish this before the beginning of next season, but the plot is long and detailed, so if it doesn't happen, I hope my readers will forgive me. So far, all of my House fics do exist in the same verse. It's not necessary to have read the other two, but there is the occasional reference. Feedback will earn you my eternal love.

**Disclaimer: **_House_, its characters, and all related accessories are not mine. There's probably something wrong if you didn't already know that. A list of the references I used for medical research will be posted with the next couple of chapters. It's a little on the spoilery side right now.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

There are too damn many types of pain medication.

It's 1:11 AM on Tuesday morning, and the twenty-four hour Walgreen's is all but deserted, except for the strange looking man on aisle eight.

He's tall and skinny, with graying hair badly gelled, so that it looks like peeling wallpaper coming unstuck from the surface of his scalp. He's dressed in a t-shirt and boxers, like he somehow rolled out of bed and ended up in one of those nightmares about being in a public place without clothes on. His hands move clumsily in front of him, jerking unpredictably every now and then. His eyes are flat and bloodshot, and his skin seems to hang from his chin and cheeks, giving him the jowls of a much older man.

Two pharmacists watch from behind their counter, noting how the man is rifling through the boxes of medication on the shelves, pausing every now and again to clutch at his head or massage the heel of a hand against his temples. They look at each other, then back at the man in silence. Ordinarily, one of them would go over to him and ask him what he needs. At the very least, they'd throw him the hell out of the store before every brightly colored box had gone tumbling from the shelves to the floor.

But his face. There's something that isn't right about his face, and though he's cursing just loud enough to be understood about Tylenol versus Aleve or Advil, his face stays flat in a way that makes the two young pharmacists think about zombie movies.

It's 1:13 AM on Tuesday morning when the pharmacists contemplate fleeing, and leaving this strange man to ransack their store.

* * *

It's started to sprinkle as the now-unemployed Allison Cameron walks out of the hospital, the little drops of rain cold against her tingling skin, a counterpoint to the warmth of fading adrenaline that fills her chest and stomach. She wonders how long it will be before she stops thinking of herself by her last name, and whether she'll even get a chance before finding her next job, and whether being Allison instead of Dr. Cameron is really something she's missed in the past three and a half years of her life. 

Her thoughts won't stop spinning in circles as she climbs into her car, and she almost wishes it weren't too late for traffic to slow her down. It's the kind of weather where she can't decide if she needs windshield wipers for the spray, and she turns them on and back off again three times during the fifteen minutes it takes to drive to Chase's house.

"You _again_?" he says when he opens the door, dressed this time in a gray t-shirt and a pair of blue and green plaid pajama pants, but his smile is radiant and there's the hint of a laugh in his voice.

"I told you I'd come back," she says, and kisses him before he has a chance to reply. His arms wind around her waist, and she steps backward until her shoulder-blades hit the doorframe. He smells like soap, and his cheek is rough with a hint of stubble against her skin. She hooks a foot behind his ankle, urging him closer.

"Where'd you go?" Chase mumbles against her lips, one hand coming up to tangle in the hair at the nape of her neck.

"I resigned," she says simply.

Chase freezes. "Seriously?"

Cameron nods. She thinks about House, and the empty look in his eyes upon finding her in his chair. About his lack of surprise at her resignation. Had he known, before she did, how vitally connected she and Chase and Foreman have become? She'd assumed she would stay no matter what, as long as House was still there. Three years ago, she would have wished Chase and Foreman well, and gone on with her life. She's sad, she thinks, though she isn't really sure. She has the strange sense that she's mourning the lack of a perceived loss.

"Come inside," says Chase.

* * *

Now the man is sitting in the middle of aisle eight and ripping boxes open without even a single glance at the employees or the security camera above his head. He seems to be having a problem with his hands, because he can get through the cardboard and tape, but when it comes to the bottle, he fumbles. Red-tinged fingernails spin the cap futilely for a few seconds, the clear directions "push and turn to open" seemingly unnoticed though they're right in his line of vision. 

The pharmacists jump, startled out of their sickly-fascinated reverie as the man smashes the lid of a bottle of Tylenol against the ground. The plastic doesn't give way the first time, or the second, but the man keeps trying. Finally, after nearly a full minute, he makes a noise that isn't quite human, and throws the bottle full-force against a wall. The lid cracks, leaving a dent in the white paint it's collided with, and little red and yellow pills scatter all over the floor.

The man scuttles on all fours, stopping every few inches to grab at his head. Then he's guzzling pills from the filthy drugstore tile, swallowing them dry like a starving man getting his first taste of food.

Shaking himself off, one of the pharmacists grabs the phone next to the checkout and dials three sharp jabs.

"What are you doing?" asks the other, eyes still on the man, as if he might suddenly morph into a monster.

"I'm calling the cops."

* * *

Cameron sits on Chase's leather couch, and tries not to think about the one other time she's been inside his house. She keeps her eyes on him as he takes two glasses from a cupboard and fills them with ice and water from the refrigerator door. There's already condensation on the outside when he hands her the glass, and Cameron shivers just a bit. She takes a sip, feeling like they ought to be drinking something alcoholic, then amends that thought as more memories come flooding in. 

"Thanks," she says, setting her glass on the end table. "Sorry for running out on you before."

Chase raises his eyebrows and shrugs. "It's okay. Though I am still a bit confused."

Cameron nods, and tries not to smile at the memory of his shock when she'd told him she had to leave after standing on his stoop for five minutes. The truth is, she isn't sure why kissing Chase made her think of House. It didn't have anything to do with making her boss jealous, or even wanting to be with him instead. But House has taught her all he can, and now he needs a change too. Somehow that hadn't occurred to her before.

"I just didn't want to have any unfinished business," she says at last.

Chase doesn't look entirely convinced, but he comes over and sits next to her anyway. He leans over Cameron to set his glass beside hers before wrapping an arm around her.

"I promised I'd come back," she repeats, laying her head on his shoulder.

* * *

The clinic has turned into a circus during the forty-eight hours it's taken to deal with House, his miracle patient, and his now-ex fellows. Lisa Cuddy sighs as she wades through the mayhem towards her office. 

She doesn't need to talk to a nurse or look at a status report to know what's going on. It's all over the news on the waiting room televisions, scrolling in bold letters across the bottoms of screens, spewing from the mouths of over-excited reporters, and sitting in the chairs up and down the halls of her clinic.

Summer cold epidemic reported in New Jersey. Frighteningly quick occurrence. Potentially devastating circumstances if this does, in fact, turn out to be the dreaded pandemic bird flu.

And yet, no one in sight appears to have an ailment worse than a runny nose or a slight cough.

Giving up on reaching her office, Cuddy grabs a lab coat and a chart, and joins the fray.

* * *

She's straddling Chase on the couch, her shoes on the floor and his shirt off before he stops her. He catches her wrists and sits up just a little, swallowing hard enough that he can feel every muscle in his throat straining. 

"Allison. I don't want you to get the wrong idea, but if this is just sympathy sex, then I don't…" He can't quite bring himself to say he doesn't want it.

"It's not sympathy sex," says Cameron, the nervous look from before coming back into her eyes.

Chase blinks and swallows again, not quite able to believe her yet. It isn't that he doesn't trust her—though he isn't entirely sure he does—but that she'd finally managed to convince him she wasn't at all interested. "Then what? You're not saying you honestly want a relationship with me."

"I'm thinking of it more like an experiment," she says.

He knows he ought to be offended by that, ought to shove her off him and get dressed. But the scared look hasn't left her eyes, and there's something in her voice that's changed. For all her widely given empathy, he isn't sure Cameron actually knows how to talk about emotions any better than he does. "And what exactly would your experiment be testing?"

"Researcher wishes to determine whether subject has recovered sufficiently to maintain a healthy relationship." She gives him a sad little half-smile.

"And you are…?"

"Both."

"I think I can handle that," says Chase. He lets go of her wrists, and brings one hand up to cup her cheek.

* * *

The sirens out front make the crazy animal man jump, scream, and roll on the floor, clutching his head in apparent pain. One of the pharmacists rushes to the door, running right past the man. He doesn't seem to notice. The other pharmacist, now alone, ducks behind the counter and stays on his knees. 

There are two police officers, and they come in wielding batons. One of them has a gun drawn. They approach the man cautiously, nearly running down the pharmacist on his way toward them.

"Officers!" he stammers, suddenly wondering whether he's done the right thing. The man is clearly sick, and shipping him off to jail could be devastating. "My name is Dan. I work here. I'm the one who made the call."

The officer with the gun turns, a little too quickly. "I'm Officer Jackson. What's the situation here, Dan? Dispatch said there's a crazy guy trashing the place."

Dan points toward the man, who's trying to get a final pill from under a shelf. His hand won't fit into the inch gap between the metal lip and the floor, but the man keeps pressing his fingers in harder and harder. As Dan and the two officers watch, the man's skin tears like a layer of cellophane. Blood gushes out, far too much blood. It looks watery and thin, like the fake stuff used in very old movies.

"He's sick," says Dan, feeling nauseated. "I don't think he knows where he is."

"He been violent?" asks Jackson.

"Not towards us. He just really wanted those pain meds." Dan pauses, getting up the courage to give an order to a police officer. "I think he needs a doctor."

The two officers nod at each other. Jackson goes over to the man and gently places a hand on his shoulder. The man jumps, his head snapping up like he's just woken from a fitful sleep. He blinks at the lights, and Dan notices that his eyes are so bloodshot they look as if the corneas have turned bright red.

Jackson pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and gives it to the man. He looks at it for a moment before reacting, then wraps it awkwardly around his hand. Almost immediately the blood is seeping through the thin white fabric, showing no sign of stopping.

"Sir," says Jackson, "We're going to get you help, but you're going to have to come with us."

"There's a hospital with a walk-in clinic just a few blocks down," Dan chimes in hastily. "Princeton Plainsboro."

"Come on," Jackson coaxes. "Let's get you in the car."

* * *

The roar of heavy rain rolling down the roof jolts Cameron awake. It takes her a second to remember where she is, and why the sheets don't smell like hers. Chase is asleep on the other side of the bed, the sound of his breathing masked by the uproar outside. She watches for a moment, then swings her legs over the side of the bed and stands up, wincing as she realizes one of her feet has fallen asleep. 

She finds her underwear on the floor and pulls them on. One of Chase's undershirts is hung over the back of a chair, and she inhales deeply as she slips it over her head, breathing in the scent of his aftershave. Cameron pauses as she catches sight of herself in the mirror on the back of the door. Her reflection is ghostly pale in the streetlight from the windows, and she runs a hand through tangled hair just to assure herself that this is real.

There's a distant growl of thunder as she creeps down the stairs, and Cameron wraps her arms across her chest. She checks to make sure that the alarm is off before opening the door, then runs down the steps.

She pauses at the bottom and sits on the second one up from the ground, spreading her arms and tilting her chin to the sky. The rain is still coming down in torrents, stinging alternately hot and cold against her skin. Her hair is plastered to her back, thin fabric of the shirt turning nearly transparent. But the street is deserted at this hour, and for just a moment, she feels like she's truly alone in the world. Cameron closes her eyes and smiles.

* * *

It takes forty five minutes to convince the crying mother of three that her children aren't about to die, and Cuddy is starting to think that she'd rather be dealing with House by the time the task has been accomplished. When she finally scribbles out a prescription and exits the exam room, she finds the scene in the clinic even worse than the one she'd left. 

People are lined up practically from wall to wall, most of them with no visible symptoms. Four o'clock on a Tuesday morning, and it seems like the entire population of Princeton is standing in the waiting room.

As Cuddy watches, two police officers push their way through the fray, ignoring questions about a possible plague and a government cover-up shouted by the anxious parents and angry business people. As the men get closer, she realizes they're dragging a third person between them. And while he's conscious, he doesn't exactly appear to be lucid. There's a cloth wrapped around one of his hands, saturated completely by bright red blood.

Cuddy grabs a nurse and points. "Find him an exam room." She slams the chart she's just finished filling out onto the counter, and takes off as fast as she can for her office. This is going to require more help than she has at the moment.

* * *

He isn't expecting to find her car still parked on the street, but Chase can't help running outside anyway. His fingers work the door handle clumsily, and it takes several ineffective tugs before he realizes that it was already open, and he's just locked himself back in. Hurt and anger surge through him as he goes outside, bare feet assaulted by the coldness of the wet steps. He take the first two steps in one long stride, then freezes as he catches sight of Cameron, who looks small and fragile in the wet pre-dawn darkness. 

Fear makes the rain feel icy, and he wonders if he's pushed her too far for one night. But then he steps closer, and catches sight of the look on her face. Her eyes are half-open, raindrops catching on her lashes and trickling down her cheeks like tears. But she's smiling, and the ever-present worry lines are gone. She looks more at peace than he'd thought possible, and he gets the feeling that this is a moment he isn't supposed to be witnessing.

"Allison," he says softly, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey," she says sleepily, turning to face him.

"Cuddy called," says Chase, swallowing. He wishes now, ironically, that they had the luxury of falling into the limbo of this moment. "There's something really wrong at the clinic. She says we're needed."

Cameron grabs his hands and pulls herself to her feet, the sparkle of purpose coming back into her eyes.


	2. Crash

**Author's Note: **I apologize for the lack of House in the last chapter and this one. Also, I should mention that the man in the drugstore (and now the clinic) isn't House. I think most of you got that fine, but it was pointed out to me that it wasn't as clear as it should have been. Sorry. I got so caught up in my own mental image that I forgot you all can't read my mind. House and Wilson will be in the next chapter, and, in fact, have their own half of the plot. It's just taking a little while to get there. In the meantime, I hope you're enjoying the Ducklings. Also, I should mention that the pacing is going to vary a bit. Just like in an episode, there will be some sequences which happen simultaneously and switch back and forth rapidly, and others which are long and smooth.

**WARNING: **There is a good amount of medical ick in this chapter. Consider yourselves warned.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

The rain has let up with the sunrise, but by the time Cameron makes it through the shower and back out her apartment door, rush hour has started. Sitting in traffic, she wonders how bad the epidemic is, and whether anyone has died while she took the luxury of going home and cleaning up. But she's working on about three hours' sleep for the past seventy-two hours, and knows she would be useless had she decided to report in soaking wet.

The parking garage is swamped, dozens of cars parked on the staff level, most of them without stickers. Cameron finds herself circling for a good fifteen minutes before finally parking in a crosswalk. She forces the guilt aside, telling herself that she's going to be doing more help than hurt by using this spot for the day. And besides, she's certain she can get Cuddy to waive any fines on account of the special circumstances. The halls of the hospital are more filled with people than she's ever seen them before, though she wasn't at work the last time the hospital dealt with an epidemic. She wonders if this is what it looked like then.

The people she passes don't seem too terribly sick--in fact, most of them have no visible symptoms at all--and Cameron forces herself to take a deep breath. Half the problem with an epidemic is controlling panic, she reminds herself. She has training for days like this, though she's never had the opportunity to actually put it to the test.

Chase and Foreman are seated at Cuddy's desk when Cameron finally makes it in through the crowd in the clinic, both staring straight ahead and feigning interest in something outside the large window. The scene is almost juvenile in its awkwardness, and Cameron stifles a nervous giggle that threatens to overtake her mind's composure in its exhaustion. Chase is sipping coffee from a very large cup, and she's surprised when he produces a second one from a bag on the floor and presses it into her hand.

"Thanks," says Cameron, then turns to Foreman, not exactly sure what to say. "It's good to see you again. I wasn't expecting--"

"None of us were," says Foreman, and she thinks she detects a hint of bitterness in his tone. He sighs. "I should be at home packing today."

"Then why are you here?" asks Chase, his tone just barely civil. "Cuddy threaten you with something?"

Foreman shakes his head. "It's a matter of principle. I quit working for House because I don't want to adopt his morals. Or should I say lack thereof. Either way, refusing to help out in a crisis? I do that and I've defeated myself before I've even started."

"Really?" says Chase. "Or are you here because your ego can't resist being needed?"

Cameron bristles, then forces herself back into calm. Chase is right, she thinks, though she doesn't want him to be. She knows she tends to assume the best of people, then inevitably end up feeling betrayed when they turn out to be simply human. The knowing doesn't make it any easier to avoid or ignore. Cameron takes a breath and tries to zone out, not wanting to acknowledge the less pleasant side of either man this morning.

Foreman shakes his head and turns to Cameron. "Tell me you two aren't sleeping together again."

"Why would you think that?" she deflects, hoping to avoid the subject altogether.

Foreman glances at the cup in her hands and raises an eyebrow pointedly. "He didn't bring me any coffee."

"We didn't know if you were going to be here," says Chase.

"And why are you here?" asks Foreman.

Chase shrugs and leans back in his chair. "I loved my job. And I don't have anything else lined up yet. Helping out here sure as hell beats sitting at home feeling sorry for myself."

Cameron tries not to feel stung. She knows it's unrealistic to think sex, or even a potential relationship could replace either of their jobs. In truth she isn't sure how long she would have wanted to spend uninterrupted at his place. But that doesn't stop the usual feeling of disappointment from bubbling up in her gut.

"And you?" asks Foreman, jarring Cameron out of her thoughts.

"I became a doctor because I wanted to help people," she says simply. The truth is, she hasn't thought about why she came running back so easily. She tells herself it isn't because she wants time to further settle things with House. He's right that they all need a change, and she intends to go through with it. And yet, here she is without a second thought.

Cuddy opens the door and rushes into her office, making all three of them jump. As ambivalent as Cameron has felt about House's boss in the past, she can't help thinking it looks like Cuddy has aged five years in the night that they've been gone. A wave of sympathy washes over her, and she wonders how they've just been arguing over justifications for their presence here. Of course they're here. The people in this hospital need all the help they can get right now.

"Thank you all for coming so quickly," says Cuddy, sitting behind her desk and gesturing at the remaining empty chair. Cameron pulls it over and takes it, setting her coffee on the edge of Cuddy's desk. She nods, resisting the urge to chastise Chase and Foreman when they don't do the same.

"What's going on?" asks Chase.

Cuddy shakes her head. "We're still not entirely sure. There's some kind of a summer cold that a lot of people have caught very fast, probably due to the bad allergy season. Local news channels are making it very sensational and calling it an epidemic, possibly a pandemic flu. From what I've seen so far, it just looks like a lot of scared people with the sniffles."

"So you want us to do what?" Foreman pushes his chair back. "Prescribe ten days of reassurance?"

"Something like that," says Cuddy. "All staff working in the clinic will meet in my office at noon for a lunch break and an update on our current understanding of the situation. If anything changes, we may require more aggressive treatment of the patients. As of right now, if you don't see any serious symptoms, make them comfortable and send them home.

"If this is a rumor panic, we'll need all the beds we have to treat the people who actually need it. If it's really a pandemic...there's no way we'll have enough beds anyway." Cuddy scribbles some notes on a pad and gets back to her feet. "I wish I could offer you overtime pay, but I've got our entire staff working, and we don't have the resources. Since you're not currently employed here, I can offer you the equivalent of the salary you'd get working the same hours for House."

Cameron nods again. Chase and Foreman don't protest, so Cuddy goes on.

"Because of the number of patients, I'll need the three of you to split up. We've set up a command center of sorts at the nurse's station. Go there for your assignments."

* * *

Elevated panic moves through the overfilled clinic waiting room in waves as the three of them step out of Cuddy's office. It's already so full that there aren't any more chairs, and barely any standing room either. But people are suddenly trying to pack in closer and closer, away from the center of the room, pressing themselves to the walls like they want to break through.

The man with the red eyes that they've all been watching is on his feet again, stumbling towards a table covered in magazines. His eyes are watering, the tears reddish as they fall onto his cheeks. His arms, and the areas of his legs visible below his thin boxers are covered in rapidly blossoming purple bruises. He stumbles, catching himself on the edge of the table with his hurt hand, and makes a noise like the roar of a wounded animal. He drops to his knees, and a terrible sound comes from deep in the back of his throat.

There's a gasp from the crowd of sick and scared people as the man vomits onto the floor. The contents of his stomach are black, too black to be any kind of food, and seem to be some kind of strange thick liquid. Mixed with the black are tiny globs of bright red, like macabre candy cherries, melting into spoiled fudge. Blood. The pool is spreading across the floor, seeping under the table and flowing around the legs of chairs. The people back away even further. The man's stomach should have been more than empty by now, and yet still he continues to vomit.

Then, just as suddenly, the attack seems to stop. The man's face goes slack, and he sways dizzily on his feet. His arms hang loosely at his side, and his jaw falls open, giving his face a blank, surprised look. He starts to shake, swaying to the right, then back to the left. The man falls forward, first to his knees, and then flat on his stomach. He lies there, deathly still.

* * *

Snapping into action, berating herself for standing and watching like some sick rubbernecker at a twenty car pile up, Cameron pushes through the crowd and drops to her knees beside the man, carefully avoiding the bloody vomit. She rolls him onto his back and feels for a pulse with gloved fingers, her own speeding up when she finds it slow and weak.

"Get a gurney!" she yells through the crowd to Foreman. "Chase, get over here!"

The bloody vomit pooled on the floor is like nothing she's ever seen, and the smell is enough to make her feel dizzy and light-headed. She prides herself on being professional, and she's seen a lot working for House, but this is unlike anything she's ever encountered outside the pages of a textbook. A niggling feeling in the back of her brain tells her to run, to get far away while she still can, but that would go against every moral she has. This man is dying, and she's the one in a position to treat him. Even if that means risking her own life. It's a decision she's had to make before, and one she hopes to be confronted with again in the future.

She's barely had time to start examining the man when Chase appears beside her, dropping to his knees and gently pushing her out of the way. Cameron shifts to kneel beside the man's neck, continuing to monitor his pulse. A gurgling sound comes from the man's throat , and blood dribbles from his lips down the side of his face when Chase peers into his mouth. Then he stops breathing.

"Respiratory arrest," says Chase, as the gurney arrives. He and Foreman carefully lift the man on. "We've got to get him to the ICU."

"No," says Cameron, surprising herself. She thinks about Foreman in the clean room, and the hate she felt toward Cuddy then. But every instinct is telling her she's looking at the beginnings of a disaster.

"What?" Chase blinks, too focused on the emergency to think it through. "Why?"

"Look at him! He has all the symptoms of hemorrhagic fever, and we have no idea which one. _This _is a potential epidemic right here. Who knows if the other people here have the same thing he has? We could be condemning half the hospital to this if we expose them!" Cameron takes a deep breath, feeling weak in a way she hasn't since medical school.

"She's right," says Foreman. "We've got to contain this thing here."

"Get me a laryngoscope," says Chase, snapping on gloves and swiping his fingers down the man's throat, checking for blockage. "I think we're gonna have to intubate him here."

Foreman presses through the crowd and is back a few seconds later, pressing the instrument into Chase's hands. Cameron steps back and watches as he leans over the man's head, angling the scope into position before sliding it over the man's tongue and down his throat. There's a gagging sound, and the man begins to vomit again. Chase jumps out of the way, just barely managing to avoid the explosion of blood which is forceful enough to dislodge the laryngoscope. It clatters to the floor, and no one moves to pick it up. There's a sound like the violent ripping of thick paper, and the man begins to bleed from the bowels as well, black fluid soaking the white gurney and giving off the most overpoweringly terrible smell Cameron has ever experienced. A woman standing along the far wall faints, and there is a collective gasp from the rest of the crowd.

The vomiting momentarily subsides, and the man goes still but for the continuing bleeding. Chase takes a wary step forward, and feels for a pulse again, keeping the rest of his body as far from the man as possible. When he meets Cameron's gaze, his eyes are burning with the single-minded determination she only sees when he's working to bring a patient back from death's door.

"No pulse," he says. "Call a code in here."

Two nurses appear with a cart, practically knocking people down.

"Defibrillator," says Chase.

"Wait," says Foreman. "We have no way of knowing if--"

"We don't have a choice," Chase interrupts. He takes the paddles and turns to Cameron. "One milligram of epi."

She gives the injection and steps back as he charges the paddles and calls clear. The man's body jumps under the shock, then goes still again. She reaches out to check for a pulse again, feeling oddly distant. She's worked this scenario with Chase a million times, the rhythm of steps back and forward as familiar as an old dance routine. But it's never been in these circumstances, and she's never been quite so afraid of a patient before.

"Nothing," she says, trying to keep her voice calm.

"Again," says Chase. "Charging...clear!" The paddles buzz and the man's body jerks like something out of a horror movie. Blood that's dripped onto the man's chest sizzles, and Cameron feels nauseous at the forced sloppiness of this entire operation. There's still no sign of a pulse under her fingertips. She shakes her head, and reaches for another syringe of epinephrine before Chase can tell her it's needed. A stream of blood leaks down the man's arm when Cameron removes the needle, and she presses her fingers against it, wondering how she could possibly have hit a vein that large.

"Charging," Chase says again, the energy beginning to go out of his voice. Saving this man is a long shot, and he's always been realistic when it comes to his patients. "Clear." Cameron jumps back, and the bleeding from the needle puncture starts up again, showing no sign of clotting. The man's body jumps a third time, but she isn't surprised to find that he still doesn't have a pulse when she presses her fingers to his throat. Cameron looks at Chase and shakes her head.

"Charging," he says.

Cameron steps in front of him, but stops short of touching his shoulder. "Chase," she says softly.

"We've got to keep going," he says, though he doesn't sound convinced.

"Look at how much fluid he's lost. He's bleeding out, and even if we could get him a transfusion, he'd hemorrhage around the needle. He's been in respiratory arrest for far longer than ten minutes now, and even if we somehow manage to get his heart restarted, the damage to his brain will be catastrophic." Cameron watches Chase's face fall, and feels guilty for having to be the one to tell him.

Chase sighs and turns the defibrillator off. He glances at the clock on the clinic wall, still determined to finish the task before showing any signs of emotional distraction. "Time of death 8:22 AM."

Foreman clears his throat, and steps past the cart. "Someone get Cuddy. Tell her we're going to need the CDC on the phone."


	3. Lockdown

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay on this chapter. Also for the slightly shorter length. I'm hoping to have the next update in about a week, but I want to warn you all that it may be longer due to some insanity coming up in my life. Don't think I've abandoned you. On the bright side, you finally get some House and Wilson!

* * *

Chapter 3

Wilson is wracked with guilt as he makes his way toward the Diagnostics office. He should have been in the clinic, he tells himself, though his schedule this week has been tighter than ever with patients who need him. Cuddy called for everyone available, and he wasn't available, but now he thinks maybe he should have done something to change that. The entire hospital is buzzing with news of what's happening in the clinic. A man is dead. Everyone inside may be infected. The entire hospital is locked down: nobody goes in or out.

"It's too bad."

Wilson stops short, nearly ploughing over House, who's standing just inside the door of his office, looking out through the glass. The halls are nearly deserted but for the occasional person running toward some terribly urgent destination. The atmosphere even here is one of panic, though the clinic is two floors away.

"What's too bad?" asks Wilson cautiously.

"This was quite possibly the one day I _should_ have done my clinic duty, and I was so inconveniently occupied with sleeping off a hangover." House shakes his head sadly.

"I thought you didn't drink," says Wilson, though he knows otherwise.

House gives him a shocked look. "After proving myself superior to a deity _and _firing all three of my employees in the same day? It was an occasion that required celebration beyond the ordinary."

"Technically, you only fired Chase," says Wilson, unable to keep the note of disapproval out of his voice. It isn't so much concern for the former fellows as it is for his friend, but he can't let House know that.

House shrugs. "It's like playing dominoes. You knock one over and they all go."

"Regretting that decision yet?" asks Wilson hopefully.

"With _this_ going on?" House snorts, gesturing to a young woman who's crying out in the hall. "Are you kidding?"

"What exactly happened in the clinic?" asks Wilson, trying to change the subject now that he knows he won't be making any progress with it. He isn't sure whether he wants House to admit regret or not. On the one hand, he has the creeping suspicion that everyone is a hell of a lot less okay with the whole situation than they're making out to be. On the other, if House really has decided that it's time for a change—Well, that has its own appeal.

"What makes you think that I would know?" House flips his cane through his fingertips absently. "I already told you, I was at home asleep."

"Right, you expect me to believe that _you_ wouldn't have gone to every effort to find out exactly what was going on the minute you got in. You're the one acting like a kid at Christmas."

House rolls his eyes, but doesn't protest this time. "Man bleeding out of every orifice in the middle of a packed clinic. It's the stuff of horror movies. Or soap operas. Maybe both."

"I assume Cuddy contacted the CDC?" Wilson swallows, and tries not to show that this is unnerving him as well. House is obviously enjoying himself, and is prepared to do it at anyone's expense. Wilson has learned in the past year that there's no such thing as limitations for House.

"I wouldn't know," says House. "She's in there. I'm out here. Contact is strictly forbidden." He pauses and swings the top of his cane like a golf club across the floor. A crumpled piece of paper that looks suspiciously like Cameron's resignation letter goes flying and lands just beside the trashcan. "Damn."

Wilson crosses the room, picks up the paper, and throws it in the trash before looking back at House. The intensity in his friend's eyes tells him he hasn't heard everything yet. "I'm assuming you have a theory?"

"Hemorrhagic fever," says House. He makes his way over to the trash can and uses his cane to fish the ball of paper back out again. Wilson watches resignedly as House uses the crook to flip it up in the air and catch it again. He does this several more times before throwing the paper above his head and swinging the cane at it like a baseball bat. The paper ball flies weakly through the air and hits the glass wall a few feet away. "Ever heard of Marburg?"

Wilson exhales in a sharp little laugh before he realizes that House is serious. "Of course. But what makes you think that—"

"The symptoms fit," says House simply.

"But they could fit any number of other diseases!" Wilson protests, though he has to admit that the ones which come to mind seem even more impossible.

"But Marburg's cooler," says House. "Starts with flu-like symptoms. Bruises develop all over the body, sometimes resembling a rash. The blood clots, and a series of strokes occurs, causing muscle death to nearly every part of the body. Then the internal organs liquefy. The patient vomits blood, sloughs his bowels, and finally bleeds out through his eyes, ears, nose, mouth…even the pores of his skin. Essentially, the virus changes every bit of every cell into a working replica of itself. Pool of virus on the floor, formerly known as human being."

House limps over to the glass and picks up the paper ball. Standing as tall as he can, he throws it toward the trash can. It lands inside with a metallic thud. "Neat, huh?"

* * *

The doors to the elevators and stairwells are locked, and attended by the security guards who started out the morning trying to control the crowd in the waiting room. The dead man's body has been sealed into a special stretcher, and carried away by men in space suits. The patients stood in mute horror, watching as the bloody vomit was cleaned from the floor with a substance equally as foul smelling, and the area of the tile roped off.

Now they're standing in small clumps, talking, or trying to sleep, or simply staring off into the distance, trance-like. The ominous sense that something is about to happen hangs in the air with the smells, and is just as nauseating. They know instinctively that they have witnessed something of enormous importance, though they are still waiting to be told what.

"May I have your attention, please." It's a statement, not a question, as Cuddy's voice breaks through the nervous chatter of the many people. She carries a stool to the front of the clinic and steps up onto it. "I realize there aren't enough chairs, but I'm asking you to sit wherever you are able."

The movement is instantaneous and surprisingly unified given the level of emotion running through the room. It sweeps through from front to back, and Chase finds himself on the floor, shoulder-to-shoulder with Cameron and Foreman on either side. He glances at them worriedly, feeling the slight dizziness that always accompanies the loss of a patient. He's learned not to feel the sadness because he can't afford to, but his body still makes sure he always knows it's there. Cameron glances at him, and he winces inwardly at the look of concern in her eyes. He isn't sure why he can't accept it even from her, but he's been deprived of sympathy so long and so often that it's something he's come to scorn.

"I'm sure you're all aware by now that we lost a patient in this clinic earlier today. As of this moment, the cause of this man's death has not been determined. However, due to the circumstances surrounding his death, we feel that special measures must be taken to protect our patients." Cuddy pauses and clears her throat, looking as though she's trying to find composure.

"You were right," Chase whispers to Cameron. He doesn't turn his head, but he can feel the intensity of her eyes on him. A woman and her child who are sitting in front of Cameron turn and stare. Chase nods at them, feeling strange. He hasn't realized how much of a sense of separation he's come to feel toward the patients. How much working with House has changed the way he connects with people. He feels lost now, sitting in this crowd, as if he has no more control over the situation than anyone around him. That's probably true, he thinks, especially given his proximity to the patient who's just died. "Good catch."

"What?" Cameron turns her head quickly and sharply, like she's afraid to be caught whispering. Chase allows himself the ghost of a smile, taking comfort in the fact that she's so unchanged even now.

"Keeping him in here. If this turns out to be as bad as it looks, it'll be much easier to contain than if we'd spread it around the hospital." He doesn't tell her that he feels sick with worry every time he thinks back to the bloody vomit. That he wants to get to a shower and wash himself until his skin is scalded raw. That he's checked time and again over the past hour for flecks of dark fluid that may have gotten onto his clothing, as if he could see the contagion that might even now be replicating itself inside his body's cells. He knows she must be thinking the same thing: If anyone else is going to die, they'll be the first three taken by this illness.

"Due to the circumstances of this man's death," Cuddy continues, "there is the possibility that others around were exposed to a dangerous contagion."

Panic ripples through the seated crowd again, and Chase can hear several people crying above the sudden outburst of talking. He looks around at these people and thinks that they have probably doomed themselves in coming here, unwittingly meeting their own deaths in an attempt to be vigilant and protect their health. He feels the twinge of guilt that comes unbidden any time a patient falls victim to nature. As if he should have done something to protect them against the inevitable. Chase shakes his head at the thought. Only House would profess to outsmart fate.

"In order to protect you and your loved ones from further spread of a possible illness, this hospital has been put under quarantine for the next twenty-one days. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been contacted, and a team is on its way to ensure that this quarantine is properly conducted." Cuddy pauses again as the murmur of voices becomes an uproar. Somewhere in the crowd, an infant screams. Chase resists the urge to cover his ears.

"Because the first known exposure happened in this clinic," Cuddy shouts above the din, "this floor is to be kept under separate containment from the rest of the hospital. Persons in this quarantine area are advised to refrain from close contact and exchange of bodily fluids, since it is not known how this agent is transmitted.

"Supplies will be brought in by a team in protective gear, and we will arrange accommodations here for all of you for the next three weeks." Cuddy stops and waits until the noise level has died down again. "At this time, we feel it is highly unlikely that any of you will become seriously ill. However, we will have a team of doctors on hand at all times to check for development of symptoms. In the meantime, I advise all of you to try and remain calm. I know it's difficult, but it's of utmost importance that you try not to panic."

The clinic breaks out into absolute chaos the moment Cuddy steps down from her stool. People get to their feet too quickly, knocking one another over. A woman is smacked in the face by a child in the midst of a temper tantrum, and her nose begins to bleed. Seeing the redness, people all around her begin to scream and stampede toward the walls. Chase loses the others in the fray, and nearly jumps out of his skin a moment later when Cameron grabs his arm from behind. She has Foreman's lapel in her other hand, and he's tempted again to laugh at the utter ridiculousness of the entire situation.

Then somehow Cuddy is there, and they're snaking their way through the crowd and toward her office, leaving two hapless security guards to attempt control. Someone slams the door, and Chase jumps again, feeling incompetent in a way that he hasn't since before working for House. The sudden silence is as much of a shock as the noise outside, and the four of them stand for a moment before anyone speaks.

"That was a disaster," says Cuddy, sounding uncharacteristically flustered.

"They're scared," says Cameron, taking a step closer to the center of the room. "In essence, they're acting on basic instinct."

"As much as I'm grateful to you for getting us out of there, shouldn't we be doing something to help?" Foreman crosses his arms over his chest and leans against Cuddy's desk.

She nods, sinking wearily into her chair. Her hands toy with some papers on the surface of her desk, tidying them into a pile before she picks them up and drops them again, letting them fan out into a disorganized heap. "That's why I got the three of you in here. I need you to pick a leader."

"What?" Cameron blinks.

"We're going to need a diagnostic team in here to figure out what all these people have. You three are the most qualified doctors I've got."


	4. Stating Facts

Note: I apologize for this chapter being a week late. Last week I had surgery to remove half my thyroid and a very small tumor that was growing on it. Since then, I think my brain has been giving me oneshots to process. While I hope to have the rest of this fic up on time from now on, I should warn you that I'm now on vacation for the next two weeks. (Insane, I know.) If there's a chapter late again, it's because I don't have internet access when I need it. Also, on an entirely different note, I now present you with chapter names! Enjoy.

* * *

Chapter 4: Stating Facts

The tension in the room is palpable as Cuddy lets the glass doors close behind her, the panic from outside bleeding right through. Cameron takes a cautious breath, her chest feeling tight. Suddenly she isn't sure which worries her more—the situation outside, or the chaos she knows is about to break out in front of her. She's not naïve enough to think that they can come together as a team in a situation like this; they've killed that hope for her enough times in the past. She's instantly torn between wanting to assert herself and trying to avoid further conflict than what she knows is coming.

"So," says Foreman. He looks back and forth between Chase and Cameron, eyebrows raised expectantly.

"There's no reason we have to let this break us up," says Cameron, because it doesn't hurt to try.

Foreman laughs bitterly. "In case you hadn't noticed, that happened about three weeks ago."

"I think it's safe to assume that we're all gonna be advocating for ourselves," says Chase. He looks at Cameron and shrugs apologetically. She tries to tell herself it's reasonable, that she should accept it as a part of both of their natures. Some days, she wishes it was more a part of hers.

"Well, if we're talking leadership skills, that puts both you and Cameron at a disadvantage," says Foreman. Off Chase's scandalized look he continues. "I'm just stating the facts. Cameron has no leadership skills, and yours consist solely of ass kissing and laziness." He's in Blunt Mode, which never fails to anger Cameron. Scientific though it may be, she can't imagine speaking with no consideration for the people around her.

"If we're stating facts," counters Chase, "you were the one who two hours ago wasn't even viewing this situation as a crisis. You've got no tact."

"If we're stating facts, neither of you is winning that award right now," Cameron interrupts. Chase freezes for a moment, looking back and forth between her and Foreman. He gives her a look of silent apology again, but doesn't do anything to openly support her.

"I have the best experience for this type of situation," says Foreman.

"Neurology?" Chase scoffs. "If this is an epidemic of hemorrhagic fever, they're gonna need supportive care, not brain surgery. That leaves me best prepared."

_Immunology_, thinks Cameron. _Immunology is unquestionably more applicable than neurology. And I was the one who recognized the symptoms for what they were._ But she doesn't say anything.

Foreman turns to Cameron and crosses his arms over his chest, head cocked in the essential picture of ego she's come to associate with him. "I'm not taking orders from him."

"Too bad," says Chase. "I'm not taking orders from you."

"Would either one of you take orders from me?" asks Cameron. She's asked it before, but this is the first time it hasn't been in hindsight. She has a real chance here, she knows, but somehow she still can't bring herself to break into the argument in earnest.

"No," says Foreman firmly. Chase gives her an agonized look, obviously wanting to please her, but keep his shot at authority all the same. Cameron sighs, allowing herself for a moment to consider the thought that his answer would unquestionably be different had he still been trying to win her over. She would be hurt if she hadn't seen this side of Foreman so many times before. Moments like this, she can't stand either one of them, and she suddenly wonders if after being trapped in here with them for three weeks, she'll still want anything to do with Chase.

"So you won't work with me or Cameron." Chase leans against Cuddy's desk, though he looks anything but relaxed.

"Pretty much, yeah." Foreman rocks forward slightly, like he's trying to assert his authority already. He looks like House, Cameron thinks, then suddenly wonders whether her former boss is trapped inside the building as well.

"We're not gonna be bullied into agreeing just because you're threatening noncooperation." Chase moves to stand even with Foreman, but only manages to look ridiculous thanks to their height difference.

"I'm not _threatening_ anything," Foreman insists.

"_Right_, you're just stating facts."

Outside, two nurses go by the door, escorting a young pregnant woman who looks pale and unsteady on her feet. She's in obvious need of medical attention, maybe seriously ill, and suddenly Cameron can't stand the pettiness that's going on around her. They've never been particularly well-suited to each other in situations like this, but when it comes to treating patients, they are unquestionably a team. The facts of their recent unemployment, of this epidemic, of the absence of clear authority, are threatening to undermine the little bit of cohesion they do have. Outside, people are waiting for much-needed guidance.

"Stop," says Cameron, and both men turn to look at her, surprised. "You saw how fast that man went from sick to dead. If this is an epidemic, we don't have time to waste arguing. We are going to lose patients thanks to our infantile inability to put our egos aside for two minutes."

"What do you suggest?" Chase looks taken aback.

_And he should_, thinks Cameron. _They both should know better than this by now._

"House is the obvious choice for this," she says. "He's the infectious disease specialist, but he's not here. If we're _stating facts_, any of us is equally well cut out to run these differentials. It's going to be the three of us anyway. I say we draw a name and choose that way. Easy, efficient, and nobody has to be labeled as any less capable than the others."

Chase and Foreman stare at her silently as Cameron reaches over Cuddy's desk and picks up a blank sheet of paper. She tears it into three strips and writes her name on one of them. Chase and Foreman do the same, then hand the pieces back to her. Cameron dumps pens out of a mug on Cuddy's desk, and puts the pieces inside.

"Foreman can draw," she says, not giving Chase a chance to protest.

"Thank you," says Foreman.

He plunges his hand into the mug, taking the time to wad the paper up into the palm of his hand before drawing it back out. He turns his eyes up for a second in what Cameron thinks is a suspiciously religious gesture before meticulously uncrumpling the name he's drawn. He takes a moment to read it, sighs heavily, then looks back up. "Chase."

* * *

"This is stupid," House proclaims loudly before biting into one of the French fries Wilson has brought up to the Diagnostics office from the cafeteria for himself.

"What is?" Wilson asks tiredly, shifting his plate behind House's computer and taking another bite of his burger.

"This quarantine. I mean, I can see why they'd want the clinic locked down, but there's no reason why _we_ should have to be. They're more likely to infect all of us by keeping us here while they're taking supplies in and out." House uses his cane to hook the lid of his laptop closed, and leans forward to grab another fry with his free hand.

"Oh, so instead we should go infect the world. I can see how you would think that would be a good thing," says Wilson. He picks his plate up and puts it on his lap.

"_Oh_, we're not going to infect the world," says House. "Marburg isn't airborne. The only people infected are the ones who treated the incredible bleeder."

"House, even the CDC can't agree on the mode of transmission of the hemorrhagic fevers. But I'm guessing you think you know more than they do." Wilson finishes his burger, and picks up one of the few fries left.

"Of course I do," says House. "The real mystery here is how the stuck piglet got infected to begin with. Everybody's so concerned with the fact that he _was_ bleeding. Nobody seems interested in _why_. There's never been a case of Marburg in the U.S."

Outside the glass, two young women are whispering fearfully, standing very close together. Noticing them, House gets to his feet and makes his way across the room with ridiculously exaggerated sneaking motions. He watches them for a moment, decides that they're uninteresting, and wraps hard on the glass with his cane. The two women jump, and one of them starts crying. The other turns to glare at House, who shrugs innocently.

"You're right," says Wilson. "This is a bad idea."

"The quarantine?" House looks suspicious.

"No, just the part where they let _you_ loose on the hundreds of panicked victims for twenty-one days." Wilson turns around and waves apologetically at the two young women. The one who isn't crying gives him the finger.

House feigns innocence. "How am I supposed to do my job if I don't talk to the patients?" He snatches another fry off Wilson's plate on the way back to his chair.

"What job?" Wilson quickly eats the last three fries before House can find a way to get to them too. "You have no team and no cases."

"I'm an infectious disease specialist!" protests House, pretending to be shocked. "We've got an outbreak of a rare disease here. And a really, really cool one at that."

"Wait." Wilson sets the empty plate on the edge of House's desk, and tries to get his head around everything he's just heard. "You're going to try and diagnose the clinic patients? From _outside_ the quarantine?"

House looks excited. "Do you think I could get Cuddy to let me in?"

"No!" Wilson throws up his hands, exasperated. Exhaustion, worry, and guilt are shortening his usual tolerance for House.

"Too bad." He gets up and erases the whiteboard. "We'll just have to work with what we can get. They do have telephones down there, don't they? I mean they're not actually _in_ Africa. Just stealing its diseases."

"House. You fired your team. You can't even look at the patients. Who are you going to run your differential with?" Wilson sighs heavily.

"Well, you," says House, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Me?" Wilson sputters. "I have patients stuck here!"

House writes BLOOD in red marker, then stops and points. "You also have ketchup on your tie."

* * *

Cameron watches from the front row as Chase stands in front of the gathering of limited clinic staff. He looks nervous, she thinks, and suddenly she's glad that she isn't the one facing all of these panicked people. Empathy is something she's good at, but detachment isn't, and she knows she's going to be spread too thin by the end of this. These people deserve someone who's able to keep a level head. She only hopes Chase won't give in to his natural tendency to let himself be manipulated.

"Our primary concern is to determine whether all of these people are sick with what the man who died this morning had," says Chase. "Judging by the symptoms, we suspect one of the hemorrhagic fevers."

A murmur of shock goes through the room, and Cameron looks around. Cuddy is sitting beside Foreman, and she nods stoically as all eyes turn to her. There are several young doctors in the room who Cameron doesn't recognize, and half a dozen nurses. Everyone here is aware of the scope of the situation they're dealing with, and their panic is only minimally more controlled than the patients'. Chase looks uncertainly at Cameron, and she nods.

"It's important not to let the patients here you say that. Until we know for sure, we've got to take every precaution not to start a rumor panic here. Since there have been no previously reported cases of any of these viruses in the United States, it's unlikely that everyone here is sick with the same thing. We're unsure what the initial symptoms are, so our first goal is to examine all of the patients here and isolate anyone whose symptoms are more severe than the others'."

Cuddy nods again, but Foreman is rolling his eyes to the ceiling. Two of the nurses behind Cameron start whispering, and she suppresses the urge to turn around and glare at them. It isn't their fault they're scared, she reminds herself. This is the kind of situation none of them ever expected to find themselves in. It's the stuff of horror movies, not real life.

"Then we'll run a differential using those symptoms." Chase inclines his head toward Foreman and Cameron, and the rest of the staff turns to look at them as if on cue. "If this is a hemorrhagic fever, the onset of symptoms will be extremely rapid. We don't have any time to lose. Take precautions to protect yourselves from fluid to fluid contact. If you think there's a chance you've been exposed, you are to report it to me immediately. I'd like to ask everyone to proceed to the exam rooms. See as many patients as quickly as you can, but be sure to be thorough."

The crowd gets up in a rush, and there's a moment of awkwardness where everyone tries to avoid running into each other. Cameron jumps at the feeling of a hand on her shoulder, and turns to find Chase standing behind her.

"You think this will work?" he asks softly.

Cameron raises her eyebrows, giving him a look of gentle disapproval. "An hour ago you were willing to fight Foreman for this job. Now you don't want it?"

"I didn't say that," Chase protests. He lowers his voice further, leaning closer to her ear. "I just can't help thinking if anything goes wrong…"

Cameron shivers, though she can't say if it's from the thought that finishes that statement, or the sensation of his breath on her neck. "If anything goes wrong, there might not be anything any of us can do about it."


	5. Isolation

**Chapter Five: Isolation**

It's strange sitting in the exam room watching patients go in and out. It feels oddly backwards, like the world of Princeton Plainsboro is spinning off-kilter on its axes. By the time the fourth patient is peering around the door, Chase has begun to question whether this last-ditch scheme of his to keep things under control can possibly work. Maybe he ought to be letting them relax, to be focusing on making them all comfortable instead of putting them through yet another interrogation. The truth is, if any one of them is sick, they're probably all doomed anyway.

"Have a seat," he says, motioning to the young Asian woman who's still partially hidden behind the door. She closes the door it behind her and creeps over to the table like a shy animal, trying to decide whether or not to trust him. _No sudden movements, _thinks Chase, then he nearly laughs at the absurdity of his own thoughts.

"Want to tell me why you came here today?" he asks gently.

"They had the news on in class," whispers the woman. "And I got scared. And now—"

"Are you feeling all right?" asks Chase, taking a step closer.

"I think so?" It's more a question than a statement.

"Let's take a look," says Chase.

* * *

"This clinic is still free, right?" the red-faced man asks for the third time in as many minutes. Cameron turns a page of the chart she's filling out and takes the moment to collect herself. This man is scared she reminds herself. He probably isn't listening to everything she's told him, and it isn't her place to get impatient.

"Yes," she says, trying to keep her voice calm.

"Then who's going to pay for all of…" He motions to the door, as though she can see through it to the hall, where food is being delivered by men in containment suits, and cots are being unfolded along the walls. "this."

Cameron sighs lightly and slips on a fresh pair of gloves. "Let's not worry about that right now," she says, feeling under the man's throat for swollen lymph nodes. "Right now our top priority is making sure all of you get the treatment you need."

"Will the treatment be covered by insurance?" The man scratches his head.

Cameron takes another breath and peels off her gloves.

* * *

"What was wrong with that guy?" The girl is thin, blonde, and big-breasted. She looks up at Foreman through too-long bangs, and he resists the urge to roll his eyes at her attempts to flirt in the middle of this crisis.

"We're not sure yet," Foreman says patiently. As much as he hates taking orders from Chase, he has to agree that letting these people find out what they might have been exposed to is an unquestionably bad idea. As much as he's tempted to shock this girl out of her stupidity, he can't afford to panic all the others.

"Then how are you going to know if I've got the same thing?" The girl stretches out on the table, crossing her long legs in front of her so that her short denim skirt rides up high.

"I'm going to examine you now. Then we'll examine you all again at regular intervals. If you develop symptoms, we'll know." Foreman puts on gloves, and presses a stethoscope to the girl's back.

"Do you need me to unbutton my shirt?" The girl smiles in a way that makes Foreman think about House and his standards with patients like this.

"That won't be necessary."

* * *

"I think I'm pregnant." The woman looks well over sixty, and for a moment Chase wonders if she's joking. But the look on her face is deadly serious, and he knows this isn't a time to be indelicate.

"So you weren't here about the epidemic?" he asks, picking up a fresh chart.

The woman shakes her head, her carefully coiffed hairunmoving. The gray-white mass of it looks entirely solid, and Chase wonders if she's the type to spray her hair every day for a week without washing it.

"Then would I be right to assume you don't have any cold or flu-like symptoms currently?"

"I think I'm pregnant," the woman repeats, her tone halfway between paranoid and conspiratorial.

"Well…" Chase starts to tell her that it's physiologicallyimpossible, then changes his mind. "We can certainly test for that."

* * *

The old man waddles over to the examining table and plops himself down so that the metal creaks. He has a big belly that hangs over his waistband and scrawny little bowlegs that look too small to possibly support him.

"What can I do for you?" asks Cameron. She has to find out why they all came here to begin with, she knows, but after ten patients, she's starting to feel like the inquisition.

"I have a rash," says the man. He shifts uncomfortably on the table and doesn't volunteer any more information.

Cameron raises her eyebrows. "I'll need to take a look at it."

"It's—it's on my…" The man trails off and fidgets some more.

"Where?" Cameron prompts.

"My ankle," the man says at last, pointing.

She bends and rolls the man's sock down. The skin beneath it is red and swollen. "When did this start?"

"This morning. I was on my way to work."

"And are these socks new?"

The man stares blankly; then his eyes suddenly widen in realization. He nods.

"Then I'd say you're allergic to wool," Cameron concludes. "Anything else that's bothering you?"

* * *

The door opens yet again, and Chase is surprised to see a nurse with a little boy in her arms. The nurse is middle-aged and looks like the universal unruffled mother figure. But today she's eyeing the boy like he might turn into a monster or burst into flames. She's wearing gloves and a mask, and she looks like she can't wait to throw the kid on the table and run.

"What happened?" asks Chase, suddenly very concerned. This is the first person he's seen who appears to have real symptoms. Te boy looks too weak to stand on his own. Over the past hour he'd begun to hope that they'd luck out of this after all. Now it looks like everything is about to go as badly as he's feared.

"Kid collapsed in the waiting room." The nurse lays the boy out on the table and backs up as quickly as she can without looking unprofessional. "Don't know what's wrong with him, but we bumped him to the front of the queue. Figured you'd want to examine him yourself."

"Thank you," says Chase. The nurse nods and flees the room.

Pulling on a fresh pair of gloves and a mask, Chase steps up to the table and looks over the boy. He's little and pale with a mop curly red hair. He's shivering, and Chase can't tell whether he's unconscious or just asleep. He presses a gloved hand to the boy's forehead, and the kid jumps awake, bloodshot brown eyes going wide.

"Don't hurt me!" the boy practically squeaks.

Chase takes a step back, instantly sorry for having startled the boy. He looks on the verge of tears, and Chase wonders suddenly why he's alone. "I'm not gonna hurt you," he promises quickly. "I'm here to make you better."

"I don't want any shots," the boy says warily.

"Well, we'll see what we can do to prevent that. I'm Dr. Chase. Want to tell me your name?"

"Thomas." The boy sits up weakly and leans against the wall, wrapping his arms around himself.

"Where are your parents, Thomas?"

"My mom was here with me, but it was taking too long. She went to look for a pay phone that wasn't tied up so she could call my school." Thomas rubs his stomach. "I had a bellyache this morning;so I couldn't go. She had to talk to them so they wouldn't think I was skipping."

"And where is she now?" Chase has a feeling that he knows the answer, but it's something he hopes he won't have to face. Nobody, particularly a child, deserves to be going through this alone.

Thomas shrugs. "She probably went to the cafeteria. She gets grumpy if she doesn't have her coffee."

"So she's outside the quarantine."

Thomas nods, the scared look coming back into his eyes. "She didn't mean to leave me here. I don't think."

"It's okay," says Chase, though he's not sure he believes it himself. "We'll take good care of you." He picks up a chart. "Tell me how old you are?"

"Nine," says Thomas.

"And why did you stay home from school today? I want you to tell me exactly what's wrong so I'll know how to help."

"No shots," Thomas repeats again. Then he shivers violently and re-crosses his arms. "My stomach hurts. And my skin is crawly. And I've got chills."

"All right." Chase picks up the thermometer. "I'm gonna take your temperature now." He touches Thomas' forehead again as he puts the thermometer under the boy's tongue; his skin is obviously hot to the touch. He knows what he's going to say before the thermometer even beeps. A hundred and three.

"Well, Thomas, no shots," says Chase, trying to keep the concern out of his voice. The last thing this boy needs to know is that he's the first patient to exhibit symptoms of any kind. "But we're gonna call a nurse and get you a bedroom all to yourself."

* * *

"Are you sure you're really a doctor?" The man is manicured in a way that tells Cameron he has money he's not afraid to flaunt.

"I know my credentials, yes," says Cameron, surprised by how tired her own voice sounds. She isn't sure how long they've been treating patients, but she's starting to lose feeling in the bottoms of her feet.

"You don't look a day older than my daughter. She's a sophomore in college."

"Well, then I'll take that as a compliment," she says diplomatically, though she knows that's not even close to what he meant.

"I heard hospitals have been short-staffed lately. I'd bet they got you that coat just so you could get me to keep my mouth shut." The man adjusts his designer wristwatch, and narrows his eyes suspiciously at her.

"Sir, I assure you that this hospital's administration feels I am the most qualified doctor to handle your case." Cameron takes a breath and tries to change the subject. "I need to know why you came to the clinic this morning."

"Well, I don't really think that's relevant now, is it?" the man snaps.

* * *

"Did they give you to me because I'm black?" The girl's voice is hoarse, and her eyes look red and swollen. Foreman wonders if she's been crying or whether he's seeing his first case with actual symptoms. She looks like the typical college girl off for the summer; she's wearing jean shorts and a t-shirt, and has long hair in frizzy curls. He can see the tip of a tattoo on the dark skin of her shoulder, just visible below the line of her sleeve. He can't tell what it is.

"They gave you to me because you stood in the line for this exam room," says Foreman.

"Right," says the girl doubtfully. Foreman thinks about the first three days after his job interview with House during which he didn't even consider why his boss might have hired him. He wonders whether this girl's suspicions might be more reasonable than even she thinks.

"Trust me, you don't want to go back and stand in one of the other lines." Foreman shakes his head. "Besides, I'm the best."

"Prove it," says the girl.

"Fine. I'm Dr. Foreman. I need to know why you came to the clinic this morning, and if you're feeling any new symptoms now."

"Liz," says the girl. "I came here because I've had a cold for like a week now. A bunch of my friends and me got sick when we were leaving school last week. I thought I was just tired, that I'd get better as soon as I got home. But I'm not better, so I thought I'd come and see if maybe I'd caught something in the dorms."

"Symptoms?" asks Foreman again.

"I've been coughing a lot, and my throat hurts." She swallows hard. "I'm kind of tired lately, too."

"And since you've been here?" Foreman puts a mask on, and looks in her ears, nose, and throat. There are signs of inflammation, and more than he would expect to see from a simple cold. He wonders for a moment whether Chase and Cameron are seeing similar cases. He has to admit that for once it would be advantageous to be working in the same room with them instead of separately.

"My stomach kind of hurts," says Liz. "But that might just be because I'm nervous. My parents are gonna kill me."

"They don't know you're here?" asks Foreman.

Liz shakes her head. "We're kind of tight on money right now. I didn't do so hot in school…lost my scholarship. They'd be pissed if they knew I was seeing a doctor on top of that."

"Well," says Foreman, "the good news is that they won't be able to get near you for at least another three weeks. Better news is that this is still a free clinic."

He finishes examining her, and makes a decision. "You do have some symptoms of infection. I'd like to test you for Strep. In the meantime, you'll be put into a private room for observation."

* * *

The young pregnant woman being helped in the door is the same one Cameron saw through the glass of Cuddy's office more than three hours ago now. Her first thought is that it's outrageous this woman hasn't been treated sooner. She'd assumed that Chase or Foreman had already been assigned to take care of this. Her second thought is how terrified this woman must be, for both herself and her baby. She thinks back to the section about hemorrhagic fevers in her old textbook, and flinches at the memory of its contents pertaining to pregnant women.

"What can I do for you?" Cameron asks, taking over from the nurse and helping the woman to sit on the examining table. She smiles and nods to the nurse, who closes the door behind her.

"I started to get sick last night. And I couldn't get an appointment with my regular doctor until later in the week, but I'm pretty far along, and I was afraid that—" She breaks off and presses the back of one hand to her mouth, looking as though she's about to cry.

"You were afraid that you couldn't wait without putting the baby at risk," Cameron finishes for her.

"Yes, exactly." The woman takes a ragged tissue from her pocket and blows her nose loudly. "Her father didn't want her. He left when he found out I was pregnant." She runs her hand through mousy brown hair. "I can't let anything happen to her. This may be the only chance I've got."

"I promise you, I'll do everything I can to make sure your baby is safe." She offers a gloved hand. "I'm Allison," she says, though it isn't exactly professional. This isn't exactly the typical situation, either.

"I'm Carol," says the woman, returning the shake limply.

"What seems to be wrong, Carol?" Cameron asks gently.

"When I woke up, I was all sweaty. I couldn't find my thermometer—it's irresponsible, I know, but I couldn't find it—and I'm sure I have a fever. And my head hurts. A lot. I didn't know if it was safe to take anything with the baby."

"All right," says Cameron, starting her examination. Carol is right; she does have a fever. And there's something not right about her eyes. The blood vessels are inflamed, but they're more than just bloodshot. It's as if her entire corneas are starting to turn red. Cameron thinks about the man who's just died, and knows from the changing expression on Carol's face that she's failed to keep her fear disguised.

"If I do have…whatever this is…" Carol pauses, swallows, takes a breath. A sticky looking tear rolls down one cheek. "What's the risk to the baby?"

Cameron thinks about the textbook again, about everything she's learned about hemorrhagic fevers. Horrible, macabre miscarriages, with fetuses practically liquefied inside the mother's womb, so that all that's left is thick bloody tissue. Nine times out of ten, the mother dying of shock. But if that's the case here, it's already too late to make any kind of difference.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," says Cameron, and smiles reassuringly.


	6. A Plague for the Apocalypse

**NOTES**: A (mostly complete) list of the references I used for medical research is now posted in my profile. There will be a few more added toward the end of the story.

This is completely unrelated to the fic, but I finally have a bit of a profile up if anyone cares to see. Which is not to say that you have to go look…I just hate it when authors whose fics I read don't have a profile…so…yeah, I decided to quit being such a hypocrite about it.

And a note that is related: Some of you read _On Insanity_ and noted that the characters were out reading Harry Potter and not in quarantine. You might be curious to know that as House runs roughly real-time, the dates of the quarantine are May 29-June 20, 2007. Unfortunately, I can't write fast enough to actually post real-time.

* * *

Chapter Six: A Plague for the Apocalypse

It's after two a.m. by the time Chase gets into the shower. The locker room has been converted into a bathroom with shifts for people to get cleaned up: Doctors first, then blocks of patients by last name. The break room is now the designated place for staff to sleep, and cots line the halls and waiting room throughout the clinic level.

Nearly twenty-four hours have passed since the mysterious man's death, but Chase has the disconcerting feeling that the smell of bloody vomit is still lingering. Nobody's discussed the fact that he and Cameron are the most likely to actually be infected, or that they're the ones examining the patients anyway. In a situation like this, damage control rests upon correctly choosing the lesser of two evils.

The water is almost scalding, and he turns his face into it, wishing he could spread it and the chemical-smelling soap under his skin, through his blood, anywhere that traces of virus might even now be multiplying. Nature's perfect killing machine, rapidly transforming a host into scores upon scores of replicas of itself. It even has a plan for when that host is used up: set forth back into the world in an explosion of blood and detritus. Chase shudders and tries to focus on the pale green tiles of the bathroom wall. He's supposed to be hurrying, getting to sleep as Foreman has self-importantly volunteered to be the one on call. Exhaustion has evolved into a low-keyed but constant panic, and Chase watches his hands shake as he reaches for the tap in what appears to his eyes to be slow motion.

The towel feels strangely coarse against his skin, and he wonders in horror whether he's experiencing hypersensitivity as a first symptom of whatever virus this really is. But they've only seen three patients who seem genuinely sick, he reminds himself, and none of them were hypersensitive. Still, the air is a sudden chill after the warmth of the water, and he quickly pulls on the scrubs the containment team has brought in for the staff to wear. It's comforting, at least, to be wearing clothes that haven't been in contact with a pathogen of any kind.

"Chase."

He jumps at the sound of his name as he walks out into the locker room; he knows there's no such thing as privacy under the quarantine, but the thick shell of exhaustion keeps making him forget. Cameron is seated on one of the locker room benches, trying to finger-comb her long hair. It's dripping down her back, turning the pale green fabric darker and slightly translucent. Suddenly Chase wants to comb her hair himself, if only as an excuse to touch her here and now.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think House is here? In the hospital, I mean." She twists her hair into a bun, then realizes she doesn't have anything to tie it off with and lets it fall back around her shoulders. She looks fragile in a way that Chase isn't used to seeing.

"I don't know," he says sharply, then regrets it when she flinches a little at his tone. He can't help being suspicious any time she mentions House. Sometimes he thinks he'll probably resent them both a little forever. On the other hand, he understands how she must be feeling right now, wishing for the guidance (albeit sometimes rough) that they've grown accustomed to over the past three years. "He's House. He could be here, or he could be on the other side of the world for all we know."

"If he was here," says Cameron slowly, "why would Cuddy put us in charge?" She gets up and throws her towel into the designated hamper for soiled linens.

Chase shrugs, not having thought of this before. The challenges of the past twenty four hours have been more than enough to occupy his mind without so much as a thought to the world outside the hospital.

"We're inside the quarantine, so we can examine the patients," he says at last. Then another thought occurs to him. "And maybe Cuddy's still questioning his state of mind after…" He trails off, knowing Cameron will understand what he means.

"That doesn't sound like Cuddy," says Cameron doubtfully. "She even let House work while he was detoxing."

"You could always ask her," says Chase, unable to keep a hint of bitterness out of his voice. It's ridiculously petty in a situation like this, but he's torn between having help and getting the chance to finally prove his abilities on his own.

Cameron shrugs and starts toward the door before turning back. "Are you coming to bed?"

Chase hesitates before closing the distance between them. It's such an oddly domestic question coming from her here and now, though he knows how it's intended. He doesn't tell her that the idea of sleeping in a room with his colleagues makes him nearly as uncomfortable as the thought of the virus does. He's become almost obsessively private since moving away from home, though he knows most of the staff assumes he habitually wastes time on an overactive social life.

Wordlessly, he reaches out and takes Cameron's wrist, sliding his hand down until he can lace his fingers with hers. He squeezes gently for a moment, then lets go. "I guess so, yeah."

* * *

"House, if this is you calling to complain about the quarantine, I swear you will be doing nothing but clinic duty until this hospital falls to ruins!" Cuddy's voice is unnaturally husky, and House thinks with a moment's satisfaction that he's probably woken her up. 

"Then I guess I'd better hope the CDC decides to incinerate the whole thing in the interest of proper decontamination," says House.

Wilson has fallen asleep at the glass conference table, head on his arms, a thick tuft of hair sticking straight up from where he's agitatedly run his fingers through it one too many times. He's sleeping fitfully, shifting in the chair and occasionally muttering something to himself. If Cuddy yells loud enough, it'll probably wake him up, and that will be a show in and of itself.

"House, what do you want? It's six o'clock in the morning, and in case nobody's told you, I'm in the middle of a crisis here. I know you must be bored, but you're just going to have to learn to play by yourself for once."

House punches the button for speaker phone, and puts down the receiver. "I want to help with your crisis," he says gallantly.

"You are _not_ coming in here to look at the patients," says Cuddy before he can get another word in. Either she's grown remarkably perceptive, or he's starting to get predictable. "The last thing we need is to risk exposing more people."

"Please, mom?" says House, in his best obnoxious child voice. He picks up the well-worn gray and red ball, and throws it at the wall with one hand. It bounces back and smacks satisfyingly against his palm. "A whole clinic full of people who might start bleeding out of every orifice. Come on, you'll at least want someone to tell you how many paper towels you're going to need."

"_No_," says Cuddy firmly. House bounces the ball again, but this time it hits the wall too hard and rolls away, out of his reach. He watches as it skitters along the floor until it hits one of Wilson's feet under the table. Wilson jumps and grunts, then blinks blearily at House, who grins. This is one of those moments where it couldn't have worked better if he'd done it on purpose. He points to the phone, and Wilson raises his eyebrows.

"I thought you'd say that," House concedes. On to plan B. Wilson looks suspicious.

"And you called just so you could wake me up," says Cuddy, sighing.

"Nope," says House. "Actually I have another request."

"What is it?"

"I want you to let me and Wilson out of the hospital."

There's a distinct pause during which House can picture Cuddy spluttering. "And _what_ would you think would convince me to do _that_?"

"Because if you let us out, we can go and steal samples from the CDC."

"_House_!" Cuddy sounds as though she's on the verge of hysterics now.

"Please tell me you're joking," Wilson mutters in the background. He looks as though he might fall out of his chair.

"Come on, Cuddy, you know Marburg isn't airborne! If we can look at some samples, find out what strain, maybe talk to the guy's family, then we can find out how he got it." House points at the ball, hoping Wilson will throw it back. He doesn't.

"House," says Cuddy, sounding suddenly very serious. "There's something you should know."

"What?" asks House, a little taken aback. She only sounds like that when there's something very, very wrong.

"We've already gotten preliminary results from the CDC. That man didn't have Marburg. He had Ebola."

For one of the very few times in his life, House is shocked into silence. He stares at the phone as though Cuddy might take back what she's just said, reveal that it was all a joke. On the other side of the room, Wilson takes a long, loud breath.

"Well," says House at last, "this hospital's going to be famous. Think you could convince them to name the strain after me? Ebola House. It has a nice ring to it."

"There's more," says Cuddy, ignoring him for once.

"There's also been an alien landing on the lawn of the White House?" says House.

"Your former team's here, trying to diagnose the patients." Cuddy speaks the words very carefully, as though she's afraid they might actually cause him to break down.

"Do they know yet?" House suppresses a little thrill of excitement, telling himself it's just the prospect of solving the most bizarre case he's ever run across.

"I just told them," says Cuddy. "They're not sure what to make of it."

House picks up his cane and gets to his feet. "Then I think you'd better arrange for a meeting."

* * *

Cameron shifts apprehensively in her chair as the screen of Cuddy's computer crackles to life. Chase is seated to her left, Foreman and Cuddy standing behind them. They haven't spoken much since Cuddy relayed the CDC's message, and she has to admit that despite her nervousness over the others' reactions, she's glad House is going to be having a say now. 

"Look, ma," says House's voice from Cuddy's tinny little computer speakers, "the kids came to visit for the holidays!"

"We don't work for you anymore," says Foreman, crossing his arms over his chest defensively.

"Imagine my thrill at seeing you all on a webcam," says House, pointing an accusing finger. "Chase, you told me you weren't into this kind of thing."

"It was the best we could do on such short notice," says Cuddy tiredly.

"Are you actually going to help, or did you just realize you couldn't go two days without harassing us?" asks Chase.

House looks melodramatically offended. "I came prepared!" He gestures behind him, and a very disheveled Wilson appears, wheeling the whiteboard into view.

_EBOLA, _it says across the center, _A Plague for the Apocalypse._

Cameron suppresses a shiver. She knows superstition is silly in the world of science and medicine, but seeing it in print somehow makes the danger they're facing all the more real. The sight of House is comforting, though she can't deny the sting of disappointment she feels over the fact that he looks completely unaffected by their recent departure. On the other hand, he's always been good at hiding his emotions.

"There are three known strains: Ebola Sudan, Ebola Zaire, and Ebola Reston. Two devastating, the third symptomless in humans. All three are thought to be initially transmitted by monkeys. You are looking at the perfect predator," says House, sounding almost a little awed. "Neither living nor inanimate, dead on its own but _deadly_ when activated by contact with a living host. No known place of origin, composed of a single strand of RNA. The function of several of the proteins forming its genetic code cannot be identified, though they do suggest—" He pauses here for dramatic effect. "—that Ebola is one of the most ancient forms of life."

House taps a marker on the surface of the whiteboard. "Gentlemen and lady," he pauses again, and Cuddy looks offended. "You have been exposed to the plague to end all plagues."

"Thank you for that information," says Foreman. "Now we can give a history lesson to all of our panicked patients as they spout blood from their pores."

"What are you trying to say?" asks Cameron, speaking up for the first time.

"I am saying," says House, "that if everyone in that clinic is infected, you are all royally screwed. On the other hand, you can take consolation in the fact that they probably aren't. There's never been a case of Ebola in the United States for a reason. Under decent sanitary conditions, it isn't actually all that easy to catch."

"So that was all just for dramatics?" asks Chase, looking miffed.

"Know your enemy," says House ominously. "But pretty much, yes. We know Ebola is spread by exchange of body fluids. There's dispute as to whether or not it can be contracted by air, but thus far there have been no confirmed cases of airborne transmission in humans. That means either all of your patients had Ebola to begin with, and we're about to see the worst plague this world has ever known, or none of them do. Keep that in mind when you run your differential."

"You're not going to help?" asks Cameron, surprised.

House shakes his head. "A bunch of people with colds are boring. I'm going to focus on the guy who actually _was_ sick. But please," his hand becomes huge as he reaches up to switch off the camera, "let me know if anyone else starts to bleed."

The silence in the room is deafening.


	7. Penetration

**NOTES**Sincerest apologies for the lack of length in this chapter. I wanted to get it posted before leaving for a week at the beach tonight. I'm not sure what kind of internet access I'll have on the trip, so I may or may not be posting again until August 9th. We'll see. Also, I have a oneshot and another long-ish fic in the works, and I'm not sure when I'll be starting to post those. Keep an eye out.

**WARNING**: Smut. Don't like, skip the second half of the chapter.

* * *

Chapter Seven: Penetration

There isn't a whiteboard in Cuddy's office, and for some reason Cameron can't shake the feeling that things are dreadfully off-kilter. There's a sense of something in the air, like residual adrenaline has left the patients and permeated the very atoms of the hospital along with the noxious smells of disinfectants and antivirals. A knot of dread sits heavily in the pit of her stomach, or maybe it's actually guilt. The distinct sense that she's done something wrong, though she can't quite put her finger on what. The rational, professional part of her knows that this is ridiculous, that it's giving in to distractions like these that makes doctors sloppy and dangerous. And yet every time she looks at the poster board Chase has tacked to a wall, the feeling worsens, because it isn't a whiteboard, and House isn't here to tell them not to touch the markers.

"So," says Foreman. "Differential diagnosis for a virus we've already identified."

"Not necessarily," Cameron counters. "They haven't been here long enough to be showing symptoms if they did catch it from that man." She makes her way over to the coffeepot that's been set on Cuddy's desk and plugs it in. At the very least, if they all have to be awake, they're going to need caffeine to think.

"And you heard House." Chase takes a marker from Cuddy's pencil mug and uncaps it with his teeth. "If we assume we know what we're dealing with, we could overlook something important."

"So pretty much we don't need to do anything, or we're all gonna die," says Foreman. Chase glares, and Cameron feels the familiar heaviness of a headache starting. Everyone is understandably short-tempered, but the fact that she understands it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. Days like this, she's tempted to flat-out tell them both that they're acting like children.

"Or," Chase pauses and writes 'fever' at the top of the poster board, "we've got a few patients who are actually sick, and a good number who aren't. Maybe we can actually do something here."

"We should view this as one patient," Cameron suggests, pouring water into the pot as Chase finishes writing the symptoms on the poster board. Fever is followed by sore throat, cough, nausea, headache, and inflamed corneas.

"Why?" asks Foreman, still apparently agitated. Cameron reminds herself that he's never gotten to sleep at all. "Because a kid, a college student, and a pregnant woman have so much in common?"

"It's a wide age range," says Cameron reasonably. "If we assume that they're all suffering from the same condition, then different symptoms could present at different times. We should combine them all. Whatever they have is probably what's causing the epidemic to begin with."

Chase nods and turns back to the poster board, tapping the marker cap against his lip thoughtfully.

"Fine," says Foreman.

The coffeepot gurgles, now happily full. Cameron searches a moment for cups before coming up with terribly inadequate plastic ones. She fills three of them half full, hoping the coffee isn't actually hot enough to melt them.

"If we're disregarding the man who died yesterday, I'd say this looks like a garden variety cold or flu." Chase steps back from the wall with the poster and takes a cup from Cameron's outstretched hand.

"But we don't know how this strain of…" Cameron breaks off, refusing to actually say Ebola. "We don't know how it would start."

"And we're back to this again," says Foreman. "Either it's something we can diagnose and treat, or it's the End of Days for this hospital."

"Then let's focus on what we can treat," Cameron insists, feeling suddenly guilty for bringing up Ebola again.

"Strep," says Foreman. "Any upper respiratory infection. We should start broad-spectrum antibiotics."

"No," says Chase, still facing the wall with the poster. "If we're dealing with some kind of super bug here, broad spectrum could only make it worse."

"So, what, we go around and around in circles until all our patients are dead?" Foreman looks like he wants to say something else, but there's a scream from outside the glass doors, and a flurry of movement from the waiting area.

Cameron turns her attention entirely to the door, trying to see what's going on outside, the knot in her stomach turning to an iron fist of panic. People are standing up in clumps, their fitful sleep disturbed. A young blonde nurse in scrubs pushes her way violently through, wielding something unseen in her right hand. A man jumps back so quickly that he takes two other people down with him, and a fist fight breaks out. As the nurse draws closer to the door, Cameron realizes that Cuddy is behind her, looking more upset than ever before. The object in the blonde woman's hand is an uncapped syringe.

"Shit," says Foreman, "meet fan."

The glass door bangs against the wall as the two women storm through it; it swings backward impossibly hard on its hinges, and with a deafening crack, a huge shard breaks away from the bottom.

"What—" Cameron manages, but the nurse is on a rampage and she isn't slowing down.

"_You_!" Screams the nurse, and throws herself at Chase. He ducks backwards, coffee sloshing over the side of his cup, stumbling against the wall, usually quick reflexes obliterated by shock. But the nurse is equally clumsy, and her attack misses.

"Stop!" commands Cuddy, but no one's listening.

Foreman launches himself at the nurse and catches her around the waist before she can regain her balance enough for another attack. Chase is still standing against the wall, his eyes glazed-looking. Cameron turns to Cuddy, who seems equally lost, and a fresh wave of panic washes over her.

"You people are fucking _crazy_ expecting us to work with no sleep!" says the nurse, breaking down in tears. She stabs the syringe into the air, and Foreman lets go with one hand to catch her wrist. He twists her hand around in a way that makes Cameron's stomach turn, taking the needle.

"What happened?" demands Foreman, dropping the syringe onto the desk behind him. Cuddy moves in quickly, picking it up between two fingers like it's a dead animal. She looks around for a moment before producing a Tupperware container and dropping the syringe inside and securing the lid. The nurse lets out a noise like a wounded animal, clearly not about to speak any more coherent words.

"It seems," says Cuddy very slowly, "that there was an accident involving blood drawn from a patient. She punctured her skin with a contaminated needle."

This sends ice through Cameron's veins, and she looks up to see Chase leaning heavily against the wall, like he might not be able to stand without its support.

* * *

The words stop making sense sometime after the nurse starts sobbing, and Chase looks down to see coffee still dripping onto the floor from his cup. He stares at it, transfixed. He ought to be doing something to comfort her, but all he can think is that if she's going to die, her blood will now be on his hands. He's hardly done anything to focus the other staff members, to prepare them for the kind of situation they're dealing with. He hasn't even taken into account the fact that they've gotten less sleep than he has. The screaming continues as he stares at the broken glass from the door, like absurdly mismatched background music in his mind. And then Cuddy is talking, and Cameron is talking, and he knows he should be listening, but they might as well be speaking a different language.

"Excuse us," he hears Cameron say, though he isn't entirely sure to whom.

"I'll deal with this." Cuddy's voice, apologetic.

And then Cameron's hands are on his back and he's being propelled toward the door. He stumbles on his way out, nearly hits his head on the door as Cameron opens it in front of him. For a moment Chase thinks that House will hear about this, and a fresh wave of shame goes through him.

"Where are we going?" he asks Cameron, though he has a pretty good idea as she leads him down the corridor. They've been here before.

"You need to calm down," she says, ignoring the stares they're getting as they round the bend from the waiting room. Everyone has heard the screams, seen the young nurse go running. Rumors have already begun to spread.

"Who's gonna—"

"Not you," Cameron interrupts, and Chase realizes he isn't sure where that thought was headed anyway. "You try to do anything in this condition and more people are going to get hurt." Her voice is unnaturally calm, but her eyes are wide and bright with panic. He knows this look, knows deep down that it means she's using him to deal with her own fear. He can't find the strength to care right now.

The storage room is at the end of the hallway, and a few patients are still staring. Cameron gives them her worst look, and slams the door. There's a moment of total darkness before his eyes adjust to the light coming in under and around the door, and Chase finds himself pressed against the wall. He can just barely see her face in the dark, and she looks like a wild animal.

"We shouldn't," he chokes, but she already has her hand down the front of his scrubs, and he knows he won't be protesting anymore. The back of his head hits the wall as she moves in to kiss him, her motions somewhere between frantic and predatory. She wraps her hand around his cock, and suddenly he's so hard he forgets why there's something incredibly wrong with this whole scenario. He rocks forward into her grasp, and she snakes her other hand under his shirt, making him gasp as her nails brush over the ticklish spot at his hip. She keeps him there for what feels like an eternity, lost to everything but the sensation of her hand.

His legs are weak when she pulls away, and the room is spinning. He raises a hand to swipe at his eyes and realizes that he's crying. He wonders if the others have seen. And then somehow he's on the floor with Cameron's knees pressed against his hips, the momentary brush of her tongue shocking against his cheek. Chase stops her with a hand on her waist, wanting suddenly to touch her, to slow this down so they don't have to go back to the real world of the hospital outside.

She pulls away almost brusquely, like his hand has stung her, and Chase freezes. For a second, he's seen that flash of _something_ in her eyes, the inexplicable desperation that's gotten him addicted to her. Cameron rocks back on her heels and takes hold of his waistband again; he lifts his hips and lets her pull the thin fabric away from his skin. She shoves her own scrubs down to her knees. She sucks in her bottom lip as she slides down onto him, and Chase hears himself grown. He can't tear his eyes away from her mouth.

When she starts to move it's hard and fast, Chase's body matching hers almost involuntarily. He gets the odd sensation that she's grinding him into the floor, that if she just tries hard enough the earth might just swallow him up. The tile is cold against his shoulder blades, stark contrast to the friction of skin on skin, and he realizes there's sweat pouring down his back. The sensation of hypersensitivity is back, everything suddenly more than overwhelming, and he grabs onto her shoulders as he comes, unaware of anything else in the world.

A moment later Cameron is kneeling beside him, frantically working her twisted clothes back into place. She sinks back onto her heels and runs a hand through her tangled hair as Chase forces himself to sit up. He's suddenly sore like he's taken a beating, cold now in the air-conditioned storage room. He locks eyes with Cameron in the dim light from under the door, and a fresh wave of dread washes over him.

"Oh, god," murmurs Cameron.

_What have we done?_ Chase echoes, but he doesn't say anything.


	8. Stalemate

NOTES: I'm not sure how regularly I'll be posting updates over the next few months, as I'm moving and starting college. I'm still trying to finish this fic before the premiere, but that might not happen.

* * *

Chapter Eight: Stalemate

"You know, this pretty much fulfills every fantasy I've ever had," says House. Cuddy's face grimaces on the screen of his computer, comically exaggerated by the strange frame rate of the webcam. The whole thing is surreal, and he can't help picturing her trapped inside a video game, a character on the screen of his GameBoy, stripped of all her powers.

"Grow up, House," says Cuddy tiredly. "And what do you want? The way things are going, I have less than no time for games."

"Well, that's going to be a problem," says House, "since I've got a bet with Wilson that I can beat you two out of three at rock, paper, scissors."

"House," Cuddy warns, her voice taking on the sharp edge that means he's already managed to annoy her beyond usual measures. "Tell me what you want, or I'm turning this thing off right now. I'm in the middle of a crisis."

"You were in the middle of a crisis before," House counters, enjoying the way the webcam's contrast heightens the clenching muscles of her jaw. She looks like a caricature.

"Now I'm in the middle of a crisis _in the middle of a crisis_," says Cuddy. She looks genuinely upset, and House realizes suddenly that her agitation isn't over anything he's said to her, though he knows he isn't helping. Curiosity piqued, he leans forward, examining her face more closely on his computer screen.

"More bleeding?" he asks, guessing what it would take to break her cool to this extent.

"No," says Cuddy firmly, then hesitates. "A nurse…broke her skin with a used needle."

"From a sick patient?" House twirls his cane through his fingers thoughtfully, letting his mind slip into total absorption of the case again. More sick patients are certainly not a good sign, but on the other hand, more symptoms always mean more answers. At least it will be one fewer mystery if more people begin showing signs of the same virus.

"Not as of yet," says Cuddy. She doesn't look convinced.

House looks up as the door opens, and Wilson enters carrying an armload of thick books. He sets them down on the table, then comes over to the side of the desk to look sideways at the computer screen. Cuddy nods to him, looking slightly more pleasant. House glares at her, a little jealous.

"Well," says House, "either she's got nothing to worry about, or she's going to die. Simple choice, really."

"House…"

"But you already know that," he continues. "Which means that you're really upset over something else. What is it?"

He can see the indecision pass over her features, and her ultimate choice to tell him the truth. Much as Cuddy tries to keep her professional cool, her face always gives her away. "The nurse had a bit of a panic attack. More like a psychotic episode, actually. She came in here and attacked your team. Now I can't find half of them."

House cocks his head. "Technically, _half_ my team would be one and a half _persons_. Since I'm sure the nurse didn't cut one of them down the middle, I'll assume you're referring to Cameron and Chase. Did you check the janitor's closet?"

"House!" Cuddy looks horrified. "They're under quarantine conditions. They wouldn't."

"You sure about that?" asks House. He winks at Wilson, who looks nauseated.

"They, unlike you, have some sense of professionalism. They've been very impressive so far." She sounds overly defensive, House thinks, but he doesn't press the issue any further. "I'm out of time for this. Are you going to tell me what you want, or should I go back to playing crowd control?"

"I need the full autopsy report and medical history of our Patient Zero," says House. Cuddy and Wilson both look startled.

"Why?" asks Cuddy. "Your team is already handling the differential. Or they were."

"I need to know how he got sick. If this is a new strain. He might have friends or family walking around out there infected. And you know what that means, Cuddy. More bloody people. Wouldn't want that, now would we?"

"The CDC is handling his case," says Cuddy simply. House knows this means she's already spent a good amount of time attempting to get their help, and has failed. He isn't about to let that stop him.

"All they're concerned with is the fact that they've got a confirmed case of Ebola. You know how much red tape they've got to deal with? It'll be months before they have a conclusive anything, if ever. More people could be dead by then. Or hadn't you heard what this virus has done in Africa?"

Cuddy sighs. "Out of respect for the patient's friends and family, the CDC is keeping his identity and medical history confidential. They have every reason to take every precaution with this case. You're just going to have to trust them, House."

"Because we all know how well that's turned out in the past," House sneers. "Give me your contacts, I'll talk to them myself."

Cuddy sighs. "Good luck."

* * *

The screams hit Chase like a punch to the gut as he steps out of the locker room, having showered and changed as an excuse to avoid talking to Cameron about what's happened. He doesn't know where she's gone since fleeing the storage room, and he tells himself that he doesn't care. He freezes in his tracks at the sight of a nurse running towards the door to a patient's room, and he realizes that the screams are coming from inside. He wants nothing more than to pretend he hasn't heard, to go back to the break room, or wherever he can hide, and fall asleep until the quarantine is over. But he's already run away from one crisis today, and while he knows nothing will undo the damage that has been done, he refuses to give up his authority completely.

Forcing himself into the calm and focus with which he confronts emergencies, Chase makes his way quickly through the crowd of patients which has gathered once again, and into the room. This is the bed where they've isolated Thomas, he remembers as he closes the door behind him, and he feels suddenly guilty that he hasn't come back to visit the boy sooner. It can't be easy being trapped in here without anyone familiar.

"What's going on?" Chase asks the nurse, over the boy's screams. He's sitting up in bed, red in the face and rocking violently.

"I don't know," says the nurse. "I just got here."

Chase snaps on a pair of gloves and steps past her. Thomas's face is screwed up in pain, and tears are running down his cheeks. For a moment Chase forgets about everything but the immense sympathy he feels for this boy.

"What's wrong, Thomas?" he asks, forcing himself to concentrate on the case again.

"Stomach," Thomas manages. This isn't exactly helpful, thinks Chase, since it was fairly obvious from the rocking that the boy was experiencing stomach pain.

"Where does it hurt?" Chase puts a hand on Thomas's arm, attempting to remove it from his stomach. The boy clenches tighter, and pushes him away violently. "Can you describe the pain? Is it sharp or dull? Stabbing, throbbing, burning?"

Thomas moans and continues to rock, more tears streaming down his cheeks. Chase puts a hand on his shoulder, trying to get the boy to lie down, but he flinches away again, like he's been burned. Before Chase can make another attempt to examine Thomas's stomach, the boy leans over the side of the bed and retches violently. There's the sickening sound of vomit hitting the floor wetly, and the nurse screams.

"Get out," Chase snaps at her, taking Thomas by the shoulders to keep him from rolling off the side of the bed. A moment later, the boy has calmed down, and there's nothing left but the smell of vomit filling the room. Chase pauses, trying to figure out what to do next. He feels like his brain has been put into slow motion.

"What happened?" Suddenly Cameron is standing in the doorway, Foreman behind her, and Chase jumps. He isn't sure when they arrived, but they must have heard the screaming when he did.

"Thomas here seems to have a bit of a stomach bug," says Chase, not wanting to panic the boy. He gives the others a meaningful look before turning back to Thomas. "Are you feeling better now?" Thomas nods, and lies back down weakly.

"Have either of you talked to your patients this morning?" asks Chase. Foreman shakes his head.

"Not since last night," says Cameron. "But the nurse on call reported no change."

"I think," says Chase, "that it would be a good idea to examine them again. Meet back in Cuddy's office in half an hour."

The others nod.

Chase turns back to Thomas, and tries to smile reassuringly. "We're gonna get a nurse in here to clean you up."

* * *

"Can I talk to you?"

Chase turns to see Cameron following him, her eyes filled with an emotion he can't name. She's hardest to read when she's most upset, he thinks, and for a moment he despairs of ever being able to understand her.

"No," he snaps, then feels guilty. He isn't sure whether he's angrier at her or at himself for what they've done. True, she was the instigator this time, but he thinks he's equally to blame for letting her be. (For wanting her to be, really, but he isn't ready to admit that yet.)

"We have to tell someone," she says, looking more frightened than he's ever seen her. "We have to tell Cuddy."

"What?" Chase practically yelps. "No!"

Cameron steps closer, leaning up to speak into his ear. Her breath on his neck makes Chase shiver, and he's torn between kissing her and running away. "We violated quarantine. We're putting people in danger."

"We can't tell anyone," Chase insists, panicking again. It's bad enough that he's failed to stay professional in the midst of a crisis. He can't stand the thought of the entire hospital finding out the extent to which he's managed to screw this up. The rational part of him knows that she's right, but he's far more used to guilt than shame.

"So you're all right with endangering patients in order to protect yourself?" Her eyes have gone cold, her entire demeanor shifting to reflect her intentional misunderstanding of his motives. She only gets mean like this when she's threatened, he knows, but that doesn't make it any easier to accept. "Sorry, I should have known."

"We're not endangering anyone," Chase protests. It shouldn't matter, and she's still right, but it's a thread of rationality for him to cling to, and a reason besides his own fear to keep this a secret. "We were both exposed anyway. Cuddy knows. Nothing we do is gonna change that."

"If we aren't honest about breaking the quarantine, how can we expect our patients to be?"

"If we let them know that we did something so colossally stupid, how can we expect them to trust us?" Chase counters. "The only difference telling Cuddy is going to make is that we'll lose her confidence and be less able to help anyone. Is clearing your conscience really worth that to you? Chances are if either one of us actually contracted the virus, we both already had before today."

Cameron doesn't say anything, but he can tell by the way that she's looking at the floor that she isn't going to tell anyone. He isn't sure whether he's just manipulated her, and that thought makes him feel even worse. He's every bit as much at fault as she is, if not more so.

"I have to go," he says at last, and turns toward the hallway leading to Cuddy's office.

"Chase!" Cameron catches up to him, her steps quick and uneven as he turns around again.

"What?" He wants this discussion to end, because he's getting scared that he's losing her. If she's going to leave again, he wants it to be quick and definitive. He doesn't think he can take any more false hope.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking." She's still looking at the floor.

For a moment Chase hesitates; it isn't like her to admit fault or apologize this easily. And yet he knows he's given her too much slack already, too much power over him. That's the problem, really, if he looks at it long and hard enough.

"We've got to stop doing this," he says finally. "This isn't healthy."

"What are you saying?" asks Cameron, and her voice is actually unsteady now. He wonders if that means she's more or less upset than when she's just cold.

"I have to go," says Chase, not wanting to think about an answer. "And so do you. You've got a patient to go examine." With that he turns, and doesn't look back, though he knows she's still watching.


	9. Arrhythmia

NOTES: Sorry for the very long wait on this chapter. I'm hopefully going to get into a routine where I can update weekly again now that I'm actually moved in. Also, a huge thanks to Aenisses Thai for allowing me to look much smarter than I am. Any remaining medical inaccuracies are entirely my fault. 

Chapter Nine: Arrhythmia

Carol is curled up in a fetal ball on her bed when Cameron enters, and she can't help considering the irony of the position. She stops in the doorway for a moment, trying to gather enough composure to face whatever it is she might have to tell this patient. She's never been good at giving bad news; it's an even harder prospect now, knowing that she will have to report back to Chase. For a few seconds she allows herself to resent his authority, the power that she's unwittingly set him up to have. She thinks bitterly that she's answered to men for a part of her life that is far too large, and yet she knows that it really has nothing to do with their gender and everything to do with her own lack of assertion in the workplace. Foreman was offered his own department; Chase will probably have the option as well at whichever hospital snatches him away from the world of unemployment. She will be stuck with a position equal or inferior to the one she's just given up, and she knows deep down that she's entirely responsible for her own shortcomings. Taking a final deep breath, Cameron steps the rest of the way into the room and closes the door behind her.

"Carol?" she says gently, not wanting to startle the young woman.

Carol doesn't sit up, but she turns her head and opens her eyes. The first thing Cameron notices is that the corneas are even redder than before, and she cringes inwardly. On the other hand, she knows Ebola is not the only disease that would cause inflammation of blood vessels in the eyes, and she thinks of House's warning. No assumptions.

"How are you feeling?" Cameron makes her way to the side of the bed, and pulls on a pair of surgical gloves.

"Cold," says Carol. She tightens her arms around herself and curls up more, shivering. Cameron notices now that there is a sheen of sweat visible on the skin of her face. "And my head hurts."

"All right." Headache is the first symptom of both Ebola and Marburg, Cameron remembers, but she doesn't let on. The last thing Carol needs is to assume the worst right now. This woman is scared and alone, and Cameron knows that feeling all too well. She thinks of House again, and knows he would berate her for failing to be entirely blunt. And yet, despite all the ways three years working with House have changed her, she still can't discount this woman's feelings or the chance that she might never have to know the grim prospects of such a diagnosis. The chance that she might never have to see her baby dead, ravaged by a virus as old as the world itself, even in her mind's eye. "I'd like to examine you again, just to see how you're doing."

Carol's eyes widen, and she grips the edge of the sheet with white-knuckled hands. "The nurse said you wouldn't be back until tomorrow. Did something happen? Do you know what's wrong with me?"

Cameron hesitates, debating whether or not to tell Carol about Thomas. She could evade the question entirely, but she has the feeling that Carol will only worry more if she thinks she's being lied to.

"One of the other patients…developed some additional symptoms," Cameron says carefully. "We just want to be sure that you're monitored as closely as possible."

"What happened to the other patient?" Carol sounds like she's on the verge of tears.

"He…he vomited," says Cameron.

"Oh god," whispers Carol. She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, a tear escaping onto her cheek anyway. "My stomach doesn't feel right either. I have the same thing, don't I?" She presses the back of one hand to her lips to suppress a sob. "Am I going to lose my baby?"

Cameron looks at the floor, thinking that the answer is almost certainly yes. "There's no reason to assume either of those things at this time."

* * *

"You better not be here to tell me I'm gonna die," says Liz when Foreman walks into the room. She has the same tough-girl look on her face as she did when she first came in, but he can tell now that it's all an act. She's really still just a kid, he thinks, and she's stuck in a situation that's panicking most of the adults in the hospital. He knows how she feels, putting on a brave face to look good for authority.

"I'm here to make sure I don't ever have to tell you that," says Foreman. He motions for Liz to sit up as he pulls on gloves and a mask. He feels for swollen lymph nodes, and is puzzled when he doesn't find any. Her throat still appears red and inflamed, but she shows no sign of the fever the other two isolation patients presented with.

"Your Strep test was negative," says Foreman, looking closer at her chart. Symptoms of infection, but negative on all the tests he's ordered so far. "How are you feeling now?"

"I'm fine," says Liz, but she coughs as soon as she's finished talking, and Foreman can see in her eyes that she's a lot sicker than she's letting on.

"Liz, I'm not your parents," says Foreman. He thinks of his own family, and knows his father would be praying right now. He wonders for a moment whether his mother would even comprehend the gravity of their circumstances were she here. "I'm not here to blame you for getting sick. I'm here to get you better. But I need you to be honest with me if I'm going to help you."

"I'm fine," says Liz again. "I just got a cold from being overtired." She puts a hand involuntarily to her throat, then lets it drop to her stomach. A grimace passes over her features for a split second before she pulls her tough-girl façade back into place.

"Fine," says Foreman. He crosses his arms over his chest and pulls himself up to his full height. He thinks for a moment that brow-beating a patient is exactly what House would do, but he's tried to be nice, and he can't afford to have her lying to him anymore. Further examination of the similarity of his and House's methods will have to wait until later. "You can tell me that you've just got a cold, and I can do one of two things. I can accept it, and keep you under observation. Meanwhile, you and the other patients who share these symptoms may actually be dying, and we won't know what to do to stop it. Or, I can put you through a full battery of tests that I can promise you won't be any fun, to determine just exactly what it is that you're not telling me."

"Are you threatening me?" asks Liz. She looks a mixture of frightened and infuriated.

"I just need to know how you're feeling," says Foreman again. "But if it comes to that, yes, I am threatening you. Now tell me, are you feeling better or worse than when you first came in?"

"Worse," she says at last, looking thoroughly crestfallen. Foreman feels a stab of guilt, but it's gone just as quickly as it's come. "My throat hurts, and I can't stop coughing. And my stomach hurts really bad."

"Chills?" asks Foreman. Liz shakes her head. "Muscle aches?"

"No, but my feet feel funny. Like they keep falling asleep." She leans forward and throws the sheet back, massaging her ankles for a moment before moving down the tops of her feet. She grimaces again as she shifts position.

Frowning, Foreman takes a pen from his pocket and uncaps it. "I want you to nod if you can feel this," he says to Liz. He presses the tip carefully into the top of her foot, and then each toe. She nods every time.

"You said some of your friends were sick too. Do you know if they got better or worse?" he asks.

"I don't know," says Liz. "We all went home, and we kind of lose touch during the summer. I know some of them were seeing doctors, though."

"All right," says Foreman, pulling off his gloves and jotting the results in her chart. He looks at his watch. "I need to meet with my colleagues now. I'll have the nurse get you something for your throat."

* * *

Chase stares at Cuddy's chair for a moment before sitting. Authority is a strange feeling, even in such a temporary capacity. He's made his life on following orders without complaint; he's never had much practice in giving them. He stares at the poster they've been using in lieu of a whiteboard, wondering how House always seems to find answers in moments like these. Sometimes Chase thinks there must be a key that he's missing, something inherently different in the minds of people like House. A decoder ring for symptoms, allowing the privileged few to see patterns in a list. Loose pieces of glass fall as the broken door opens, and Chase jumps. He looks up to see Cameron entering, but she doesn't meet his eyes. For the best, he thinks. If he looks at her now he'll feel obliged to do something stupid like apologize, or swear that he'll never object to anything she wants to do if she'll just agree not to push him away again. Foreman enters a few steps behind, bringing Chase's thoughts back to business.

"Any changes in the other two patients?" he asks, sitting up straighter. Cameron comes over and picks up the marker, but she doesn't look at him. She walks over to the wall and adds "vomiting" to the list of symptoms.

"Nausea," says Foreman, "and tingling in the feet."

"Neuropathy?" asks Chase. He tries to concentrate on Foreman's answer, but finds himself distracted by the line of Cameron's arm as she continues writing on the wall. He berates himself for the lack of attention, but only manages to feel a deep sadness.

"No," says Foreman. "At least, no decreased sensation yet."

"Lack of circulation?" Cameron suggests.

"Heart rate and BP were fine," says Foreman, shrugging.

"That doesn't rule out poor circulation in the extremities," Cameron argues.

"Add it to the list," Chase interrupts. They can't afford to get sidetracked on one symptom without looking at the picture as a whole, he thinks. That's always how House works, or at least it is from an outsider's perspective. Sometimes he despairs of ever knowing the real thought process. "What about your patient?"

"Continuing fever and flu symptoms. Headache. Worsening inflammation of blood vessels in her eyes." She keeps writing and doesn't turn. Chase thinks it's taking her an unusually long time to form her letters, and he wonders if it's because she's having trouble concentrating, or because she's deliberately avoiding looking at him still.

"That's textbook early-stage Ebola," says Foreman.

"Your patient isn't," Cameron argues. "You heard House, it's incredibly unlikely that this is an Ebola epidemic and we've only got three sick patients."

"So it's more likely that we've got one confirmed case of Ebola, and two that only _look_ like it?" Foreman rocks back on his heels and cocks his head in a gesture that's eerily reminiscent of House. Chase doesn't say anything, suddenly unwilling to intervene and become involved in their argument.

"It could still be a hundred other things!" Cameron protests. She has that look like she's about to either cry or hit someone, and given recent events, Chase thinks he wouldn't be surprised to see her do either or both. "We should test for infections. Bacterial, viral, and fungal. We can't do a break and enter to check for environmental sources this time."

"No, and it doesn't matter because the answer is staring us right in the face!" says Foreman. "We're wasting our time looking for an alternate answer that doesn't exist when what we should be doing is preparing for a lot more dying patients. Maybe even ourselves."

Cameron caps the marker and slams it angrily onto the surface of Cuddy's desk. Chase flinches, but still doesn't say anything.

"I am not going to tell Carol that she's dying of Ebola until we know for sure," says Cameron adamantly.

"Why?" asks Foreman. "Because you really think she's got something else, or because she's pretty and pregnant and you can't stand giving bad news?"

Cameron takes a step forward and opens her mouth like she's about to say something really awful, but freezes abruptly when all three of their pagers go off. Glad the argument has been cut short, Chase scrambles and manages to reach his first.

"Your patient," he says to Foreman. "She's in v-fib."


	10. Operation!

NOTES: So since there is no longer a deadline on the completion of this fic, the plotline has expanded beyond the original 18 chapters. However, since writing oneshots in between seems to help my process, updates will probably continue to be a bit spread out. I hope you are all still with me and reading. Let me know if you are? Also, a MILLION, BILLION thanks to aenissesthai for help with all things medical. If it were not for her, this chapter would not exist. Any mistakes are entirely my fault. 

Chapter Ten: Operation!

It's one of those moments that recur throughout a medical career, where it feels like they've been dropped into some other world in which time runs differently. The tension of the argument is gone in a split second, Foreman leaning back and Cameron poised for a strike, both suddenly silent. Then just as quickly the moment passes, and Foreman is out of the room, the rubber soles of his gym shoes squeaking against the floor as he breaks into a run. Cameron is dizzy for a moment, the breathlessness which accompanies any particularly challenging situation dropping into the pit of her stomach. Feeling as though she's already irrevocably behind, she forces herself into motion, colliding hard with Chase as they both rush to get through the doorway. His hands brush her shoulders, making sure she isn't going to fall, and then he's gone as well.

Cameron catches up to Chase as he crosses the threshold into Liz's room. Her shoulder throbs strangely with the force of the impact, adrenaline making her head and heart match its rhythm. She wonders for a second whether this is normal, and can't for the life of her remember what it would feel like to bump into someone under normal circumstances.

The room is filled with the cacophony of multiple alarms signaling the patient's distress. Cameron flinches, resisting the urge to cover her ears or yell at someone to do something. The room is too still aside from the monitors; she realizes that despite the page, nothing is being done yet.

"Where's my crash cart?" Foreman practically bellows, moving to the patient's side. The alarm changes as the lines on the monitor suddenly go flat.

"Here!" calls a nurse from just outside the door, and Cameron has to scramble again to get out of the way.

"What the hell took you so long?" asks Foreman. "That page was more than two minutes ago!"

"They moved everything when the quarantine started, I didn't know—"

"Forget it!" Chase interrupts, reaching for the defibrillator paddles. Foreman steps forward simultaneously, and the nurse freezes with the paddles in her hands as the two men face off. For a second they simply stare at one another before Foreman reaches out and decisively takes the paddles.

"Charging," he calls, as Chase steps around him and undoes the front of Liz's hospital gown. "Clear!" Her body jumps and then goes limp again. The line on the monitor remains flat, and the alarms continue. Cameron flinches and crosses her arms over her chest, wishing for something to do, anything to break this sense of unbalanced ineptitude she's been feeling all morning.

Chase feels for a pulse, then begins chest compressions. "Again," he says to Foreman after a moment. Cameron notices that this time he doesn't protest Chase's lead.

"Charging…clear!" barks Foreman. The line on the monitor jumps and then goes flat a second time. "One milligram of epi." He steps back to allow Chase to administer the injection.

"_Charging_," says Foreman, voice raised in frustration and something else that Cameron can't identify. "_Clear_!" The paddles connect with Liz's chest; her body arches and then goes limp. The monitor beeps once, then again. Cameron finds herself holding her breath for the third and fourth beeps. Foreman stands with the paddles still in his hands, Chase with his palms against Liz's chest.

"We're good," says Foreman after a very long moment, and time starts to flow normally again.

* * *

They end up in the clinic's break room, because Cuddy is in her office talking on the phone, and nobody wants to interrupt her. The look in her eyes clearly spells murder for the next person to cause any sort of disturbance inside the quarantine. Chase sighs as he realizes the poster board they've been using for the differential is still in the other room, but it's been doing them so little good he decides to forget about it and start over fresh. Cots are set up in all available floor space, the table and chairs pushed claustrophobically to one side. Someone has piled all the games and magazines from the waiting room on the glass surface.

Chase takes a flyer for a cancer benefit (now obviously cancelled due to the quarantine) from the bulletin board, and pins it up backwards so the blank side is facing out. He writes _cardiac arrest _at the top, and then quickly recopies all the other symptoms from memory.

"This is a waste of time," says Foreman, pushing back a chair and sitting heavily in it. "Our other attempts at a differential got us nowhere, this isn't going to help either."

"What do you suggest we do?" asks Cameron. "Sit around and wait for Armageddon?"

"You're not religious," snaps Foreman. "And I suggest we monitor the other two patients. If this is any indication, they're headed for a very big crash."

"_If_," Chase breaks in. "And they're being monitored. We're not gonna change anything by sitting in there watching."

"Do either of you have any new ideas for this differential?"asks Foreman.

"We've added a symptom," says Cameron. "That has to mean something. Let's all just take a few minutes to think."

There is an awkward moment during which they all stare at one another. It's a strangely private thing, thinking, and that luxury has been stripped away like all the others. Foreman looks slowly back and forth between Cameron and Chase, clearly assessing the situation. Chase feels his face flush, and takes a seat at the table with his back to them. Someone has left The Game of Operation with its lid ajar, and he pulls it idly to him, wanting something to do with his hands.

The pieces are already set, and his mind goes blissfully blank as he sets the buzzer and picks up the tweezers. He reaches instinctively for the heart piece first, then freezes, wondering what the implications of that are. The buzzer goes off the second he starts moving again.

Chase lifts the tweezers a second time, hand shaking precariously. He knows it's already a lost cause as he reaches toward the chest cavity, but it's something to focus on so he tries it anyway. A moment later he touches the side and the buzzer goes off again. He sees Cameron jump out of the corner of his eye.

"Will you stop that?" she asks irritably. She pushes back her chair and stalks over to stand behind him. Chase leans forward a fraction of an inch, too aware of her presence though she isn't even close to touching him.

"I'm thinking," he snaps, sounding harsher than he's intended. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

"He thinks he's House," Foreman comments. "Play with something long enough and maybe the answer will magically drop into your head, Chase."

"Maybe your patient has a Broken Heart," says Chase dryly, reaching for the piece again. He hasn't even tried to touch it before the buzzer is going off a third time.

"Right," says Foreman. "And yours has Butterflies in the Stomach."

"Well, there you go. Problem solved." Chase throws the tweezers down in frustration and leans back in his chair, forcing Cameron to take a step away.

"Wait," she says suddenly. "_Wait_, you're right."

"What?" Foreman eyes her incredulously. "I'm assuming you're going to try to be House now too, and give us some obscure metaphor?"

"No, it's that simple. We've got three patients with three different sets of symptoms. We're stuck because we can't come up with any one condition to account for them. Maybe we shouldn't be looking for _one_ condition. Maybe we should be looking for three."

"Or _one_. Which has already been identified," insists Foreman. "It's Ebola."

"All right, then we'll start again with Chase's patient," says Cameron stubbornly. She nods to Chase, and he gets to his feet.

"Flu symptoms," he says, tapping the pen cap against his bottom lip as he surveys the list again. "Food-borne toxin."

"Should be out of his system by now," argues Cameron. "He should be getting better, not worse. Strep?"

Chase shakes his head. "Cultures were negative."

Foreman pulls back a chair with a loud scraping noise and sits down with his chin resting in one hand. He takes one of the magazines from the center of the table and flips it open.

"E. Coli or Salmonella," says Chase.

"Right, I'm sure he eats a lot of raw meat," mutters Foreman. Cameron shoots him a look but doesn't say anything.

"Parasites," says Cameron. "He's a little boy. I'm sure he's not that careful about washing his hands."

"Gastroenteritis or Rotavirus," finishes Chase. He jots down the past few possibilities on the makeshift list.

"No diarrhea," Cameron challenges.

Chase pauses for a moment, working it out. When it comes, he can practically hear the buzzer in his head. "We don't know that. He's here for 'a tummy ache.' Nobody's asked him about that. Foreman, get a stool sample."

Foreman glares, but he gets to his feet and leaves without another word.

Chase turns to Cameron, forcing himself to meet her eyes. "Screen for parasites, more specific cultures for aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, ELISAs for enteroviruses and rotavirus." She's halfway to the door when he changes his mind. "Wait. I'll come with you."

* * *

"We're not going to have any kind of useable results for at least twenty four hours," says Cameron, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the back of her chair. "Two days for all of them."

Chase looks sideways at her and wonders what she's thinking. He knows how long it will take to get the test results, and he knows that she knows that he knows. Which means she's searching for a topic of conversation, and probably feeling as awkward about the silence between them as he is.

"It's better than nothing," says Chase, deciding not to call her out on her motivations. "We can work on the other two differentials in the meantime."

"Cuddy's going to want results," says Cameron, and now she's really grasping at straws, because that isn't true at all. Cuddy will want progress, yes, but more than anything she will want the tests done right, and that will mean taking the time that it takes.

"If she wants this done faster, then she can give House his dream and smuggle him into the quarantine," says Chase bitterly. He isn't sure whether Cameron is implying that their best isn't good enough, but it's sufficiently close to send a mix of guilt and resentment through him.

He thinks he sees her brighten just the littlest bit. "Do you think House has figured it out yet?"

"No," snaps Chase, suddenly defensive. He can't decide whether he's more upset over the look on Cameron's face or the fact that they haven't heard anything from their former boss in more than a day. "We would have heard if he had." The truth is, Chase isn't sure.

Cameron turns abruptly, facing him and placing a hand on his wrist. He flinches, then freezes in her grasp. "I'm over House," she says firmly.

"I didn't say you weren't," says Chase, suddenly wondering.

"None of you believe me." There is a mixture of hurt and anger in her eyes, and Chase isn't sure what to make of it.

"Cameron," he says softly. "I never said you weren't. You're the one who keeps bringing it up."

"What do you really want?" There's frustration in her voice, but she brushes her fingers up over his wrist before wrapping her hand around his forearm just below the elbow.

Chase freezes, incredibly surprised. It's the last question he's expected her to ask, and yet oddly appropriate under these hellish circumstances. A full-circle turn for the end of the world. And now, suddenly, he is the one with the power. He could end it now, he thinks, and be free of this question forever. But then he can't imagine ever truly being without thoughts of her, regrets, might-have-beens. He thinks sometimes that he will be caught helpless in her thrall forever.

The moment is shattered by a knock at the door, and they both jump. A second later Cuddy steps in, looking more flustered than Chase has ever seen her.

"Chase, Cameron, I need you in my office. Now." Her voice is like ice.

"What happened?" asks Chase, feeling his stomach turn over.

"The National Guard and the CDC have just arrived."


	11. Assimilation

NOTES: So I'm going to try this again. In retrospect, I think I might have done better writing this fic next summer instead of last, knowing what had to happen between the seasons. But now that I do, I've decided that this plot still fits, albeit with a slightly different vision. Hopefully some people are still interested.

Chapter Eleven: Assimilation

"I can go," Cameron volunteers, looking nervously through the glass doors at the two men in space suits standing stiffly in front of Cuddy's desk. They don't seem to be listening, but the door has continued to deteriorate, more glass breaking off and tinkling to the floor every time it's opened. For all she knows, they can hear every word she's saying.

The new team of experts has spent the past hour berating every staff member in sight for failing to observe proper quarantine protocol before demanding that they be given a tour of the hospital's facilities in order to better assess how the operation ought to be taken over. Nobody's bothered to mention that there _isn't_ a protocol for this specific situation, Cameron thinks sourly. Or acknowledge the fact that they've shown up late enough to doom everyone present. The muffling of the suits and their air supplies make the sharp rebukes sound incongruous and almost comical coming from official mouths. Cameron isn't sure why she's so eager to be the one taking the men on their demanded tour, but she's always needed to prove herself when people have questioned the things she's loyal to.

"No," says Chase immediately, then leans closer to her in order to lower his voice. "We'll get Foreman to do it."

Cameron frowns and gives him a questioning look. She can practically feel a new anxiety radiating off of Chase, though she can't quite place what it's stemming from. "Foreman's asleep. And I've spent more time in the labs than he ever has. There is no reason why I can't show our—_guests_—the facilities."

"We need sleep too," says Chase evasively, and strides off in the direction of the converted clinic lounge, forcing Cameron to follow if she wants to continue the conversation. And she's too curious not to.

"That's not what this is about," she insists, doing a few steps of a stumbling run to put herself even with his shoulder again. Chase just keeps walking, and suddenly the frustration she's been fighting to keep in check this whole time seems to have broken loose from her gut and settled itself in her chest, forcing the words from her. It's one more thing he isn't telling her, one more ambiguity, and she's sick of it all. "What do you think I'm going to do?"

Chase comes to an abrupt stop outside the lounge door, and Cameron nearly runs into him as he spins to face her. His face is composed into its usual mask of quiet and unnamed tension, but his eyes are ablaze with some emotion he either won't or can't put into words. And suddenly it all falls into place.

"Oh," murmurs Cameron, almost involuntarily. The frustration quickly sours into anger, and she has to fight to keep her voice low. There is no reason to wake the staff members who are lucky enough to actually be asleep in the lounge. "You think I want to rat you out."

"I don't think either of us should be spending any more time around them than we have to right now," Chase mumbles, obviously not having wanted her to figure it out. He turns away and moves toward the door without any further justification.

In the mood to fight, Cameron opens her mouth to answer him with any number of choice retorts running through her mind, but then he has the door open and the words die on her lips. It's already too late. And he's right to be suspicious, she thinks guiltily as she follows him inside. She's given him no reason to think otherwise.

The lights are off inside the converted lounge, and Cameron is surprised to see that the clock on the wall reads after midnight. She isn't even certain what day it is anymore. Cots have been set up in very close rows around the room, little aisles left to squeeze through. There are no sheets on the beds, but instead large roles of the paper used to cover examining tables. It's not exactly quarantine standard, but it's the best anyone's been able to do for the moment. Most of the cots are occupied, and Cameron realizes for the first time just how many staff members are inside the quarantine. It ought to be comforting, but somehow as she looks around at the unfamiliar sleeping faces, the isolation that comes from working for House is even more intense than usual.

Chase comes to a stop in the far corner of the room, and Cameron realizes that the man asleep on the cot is Foreman. It's taken her a moment to recognize him, not because of the darkness, but because of the forced and strange intimacy of sharing this tiny lounge with so many of her colleagues. Chase stands awkwardly still, like he doesn't know what to do now that he's reached his mark. Sighing, Cameron steps in front of him and lightly shakes Foreman's shoulder, shooting Chase a disapproving look.

"What?" grunts Foreman, sitting up a little to glare at both of them. "Someone had better be dying."

"The CDC is here," Chase whispers, flinching when several people on nearby cots shift. "Cuddy needs you to go and show them around the facilities. They're in her office."

Foreman frowns, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "And why couldn't one of you do that?"

"Because you've already had your chance to sleep," Chase says simply, and stares Foreman down until he finally leaves in a huff.

"You're going to sleep now?" Cameron asks as quietly as she can manage. Chase is already changing the paper on the cot Foreman has just vacated.

"Yes," says Chase. He cocks his head at the empty cot beside the one he's currently changing. "You are too."

Cameron sighs and lies down facing the wall, suppressing the urge to argue with him. He's right about everything, she thinks, and that's exactly why it all hurts so much. But there are sleeping people all around, enjoying a few hours' respite from the shadows of dread reaching their way in from corners all around. This isn't the time or place to talk, and she isn't sure Chase would agree even if it were.

When ten minutes have passed and she still can't sleep, Cameron gives up and stares at the light coming in through the slit where the blinds end, painting a single square of yellow on the wall. Absently she raises a hand, curling her thumb and forefinger to make a dark crescent on the wall. It's supposed to be a mouth, she thinks; that was the way it always worked with her brother when they were children. But her sleep-deprived brain keeps trying to turn it into a microscope image, the kind of nightmare slide you never want to see outside the pages of a textbook. She draws her bottom lip between her teeth subconsciously, and watches in sick fascination as she twists her fingers into the telltale shepherd's crook of Ebola silhouetted on the wall.

"Shadow puppets?" whispers Chase from behind her, making her jump. "Really?" He's leaning over the side, and the cots are pushed close enough together that they might as well be sharing the same mattress.

"I was a kid once," Cameron snaps, trying to shake off the discomfort of the whole situation. She can't decide whether she'd rather start a fight or roll over until their sides really are touching.

"I know," says Chase. "You just don't act like it much. At least, not around me."

He sounds oddly disappointed, and Cameron feels a fresh swell of the frustration that seems to accompany any and all conversations with him lately. "Sometimes I think I don't know you at all," she says, just to be inflammatory.

But Chase doesn't seem properly cowed by that remark. "You don't," he says simply, and settles himself back on the cot.

Cameron sighs and lets her head drop heavily back to her own thin pillow, the shadow monsters on the wall forgotten for the moment. Frustrated with him or not, she can't help dreading the likelihood that the CDC will take Chase's authority away in the morning.

* * *

Slumping back impatiently in his chair, House uses an unsharpened pencil to jab the speakerphone button on and off, turning the young man's words to gibberish. It's the fifth time he's attempted to call the CDC, and the fifth time he's heard their automatic refusal to give out any kind of information regarding the autopsy. He thinks that the staccato of broken sentences sounds like the kind of thing some simpering teen pseudo-poet might read at a slam, and wonders idly whether there's any way to record this conversation. The annoyance value of it could come in great handy later on.

"I'm—sir—understand—in—diffi—position—hospital—is—national health—respect—and—of—deceased—under—orders—his —confidential," the kid finishes.

"I'm a _doctor_," House insists. "An infectious disease specialist, in fact. I don't want to plaster the name of every living relative across the front page of the Sunday paper, I just want to know how and where he got sick before every other person in this hospital liquefies as well. You can see where we might have a common interest here."

The sound of shuffling comes through the phone, and House momentarily stops pressing the button. This isn't the automatic response, and it's the first time he's seen a chance at breaking the pattern all night.

"I'm sorry sir," the kid finally replies, obviously sounding uneasy. "It it was up to me, you'd have those records already, but my boss—"

House sits up in the chair, suddenly interested. The first part was scripted, but this obviously isn't, and there's something not quite right in the kid's voice. He isn't the same as the others. "You don't usually answer the phones, do you?" House guesses. "Otherwise you'd know that your superiors don't like it when you question their authority in front of random strangers."

More shuffling. "I just transferred," comes the admission finally, then quickly, as if in justification, "but I used to work in the labs. Containment level four."

He sounds proud, and House works through the scenario quickly in his mind. There's no way someone who sounds that proud of his job just switches to menial desk labor, he thinks. And he's afraid of something, but he isn't in trouble with his superiors yet, or he wouldn't have been given this assignment at all.

"Where was the tear?" House asks, deciding to go all-in and guess.

"What?" The sound of something heavy being dropped comes through the phone, and then several seconds of scrabbling noises, and House knows that he's guessed correctly. This is a golden opportunity, and he isn't about to lose any chance at exploiting it.

"Your suit," he says carefully. "There was a tear in your space suit. You got scared and didn't report it, then asked for a transfer because you knew they'd find out if you stayed."

"My inner glove was intact!" the kid squeaks. "I wasn't exposed to anything." There's another uncomfortable pause, and then he seems to think better of what he's been saying. "I shouldn't have told you that. Stop asking me things!"

House smiles slowly, knowing he's just clinched the deal. And it's not like there's anyone around to see. "Don't worry," he says, putting on his best faux-nice voice. "I won't tell anyone." He takes a breath for effect. "If you send me his name and contact information. You worked in level four containment; you must know someone with clearance."

House watches the clock on the wall as nearly a full minute passes in silence. Finally he decides that he must have pushed too far, made the young man hang up. But he's just started to reach for the receiver when the line crackles back to life, an anxious whisper making House draw back his hand.

"Fine. Check your email in a while." The click of the line going dead is distinct this time.

House sits in silence as twenty minutes pass, impatiently checking for new mail. Finally, the computer chimes. Nearly slamming the laptop closed, House pushes back from his desk and propels himself down the hall as fast as he can. Wilson has retreated to his office, allegedly reviewing the files of his patients who are trapped inside the hospital, figuring out what medications they'll need to make it through the next two and a half weeks. Coming to a stop outside the door, House slams his cane against it a couple of times before pushing it open. Wilson sits bolt upright and blinks rapidly, obviously having fallen asleep at his desk.

"Need you," says House bluntly.

"What?" asks Wilson, still bleary-eyed and apparently trying to decide whether this is still a dream.

"I got Ebola Dude's name. And his wife's contact information." House gestures toward the hallway with his cane when Wilson continues to gape speechlessly. "I need you to come be nice on the phone. Time to find out how Monkey Man got sick."

* * *

Feedback is love! (Please let me know if anyone's still reading.) 


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